Mrs. Tim Flies Home by D.E. Stevenson

Title: Mrs. Tim Flies Home
Author: D.E. Stevenson
Introduction: Alexander McCall Smith
Publication: Furrowed Middlebrow/Dean Street Press, 2019 (originally published 1952)
Genre: Fiction

Description: After 18 months in Kenya with her husband Tim, a colonel on active duty, Hester Christie wants to spend time with her children, so flies home to England, with a layover in Rome. Hester is astonished when Tony Morley, formerly in Tim’s regiment, turns up at her pensione and takes her out to dinner, then sightseeing in Rome. He tells her all the news of Old Quinings, the North Country town where his family lives and where Annie and Fred Bollings, who used to work for the Christies, have purchased a local inn. Annie found a house for Hester to rent during the months she will be in England as her goal is to make a home for the children’s summer holidays.

When Hester reaches England, she visits her brother and sister-in-law in London where they live in Wintringham Square but she is impatient to start settling into The Small House so heads there after a few days. Hester being Hester, she makes friends quickly: Susan Morven from Kate Hardy, Miss Carlyle the village schoolteacher, and Mrs. Daulkes the daily-help. Soon her children come to stay - Bryan is at Cambridge studying agriculture (which surprised me) and Betty is at boarding school in Scotland (fortunately, they have matured and are less tiresome than in earlier books). Parties, picnics, local gossip, and even a squabble with her landlady ensue but Hester always triumphs in the most charming way.

My Impression: When I heard about Liz Dexter’s Dean Street December Challenge, I wondered what I should read first. An obvious choice was this book about Mrs. Tim which had never appeared in my library and is now, happily, back in print. Hester is one of Stevenson’s most charming heroines and is very relaxing to be around because she is happily married and her troubles are all minor, usually domestic or based on misunderstandings that are fairly easy to fix. Hester’s sympathetic interest in those around her always leads to entertaining and humorous situations. I love this series and am so glad to have read book 4 finally, although now need to go back and start at the beginning with Mrs. Tim Christie. Stevenson herself was married to an army officer so, presumably, there is a lot about this series that is autobiographical although I am sure DES was not as clueless as Hester.

The reader knows from earlier books that Tony Morley has long been sweet on Hester, who is oblivious and thinks of him only as a kind friend. Hester’s airplane seatmate has another impression of him:

“He’s so stuck up,” explains Mrs. Alston. “So pleased with himself. Of course he did very well in the war (he’s a Major General, isn’t he?) so I suppose he has a right to be pleased with himself. I daresay he would have been more human and less selfish if he had married. I remember Freda told me he had fallen hopelessly in love with a married woman and had never got over it.”

This description of Tony is so untrue and unfair that it takes my breath away and it is a moment or two before I can rush to his defence. “Oh no!” I gasp. “Tony isn’t like that.”

Tony’s impetuous visit to see Hester in Rome unexpectedly results in gossip back in Old Quinings, but Hester enjoys the sightseeing he provides and would not have had as much fun with Mrs. Alston.

It is hard for someone who grew up eating pasta to imagine how alien it was to Hester visiting Rome in the 1950s. Tony shows her how to twirl it on a fork:

I endeavor to do likewise but without success for it appears that the absorption of spaghetti is fine art and requires practise. All round us there are people absorbing spaghetti with speed – in fact it seems to pour upwards from plate to mouth in an unbroken steam – but my spaghetti is unmanageable and slippery and refuses to disobey the law of gravity.

It is hard to imagine a time when pasta wasn’t a universal favorite but I know my father never had it growing up in Boston. But my sister and I liked spaghetti so much he had to get with the program!

Source: Library/Hoopla.

Off the Blog: So nice to see my favorite member of congress, Ayanna Pressley, at a volunteer appreciation event today!