The Ration Book Baby by Ellie Curzon

Title: The Ration Book Baby
Author: Ellie Curzon
Publication: Paperback, 2023
Genre: Historical Fiction
Setting: WWII Britain

Description: It is a dark night in West Sussex, 1940, when nurse Annie Russell hears a knock on her front door and finds a newborn baby girl in a hat box on the front steps, with a ration book tucked beneath her. Fortunately, her parents are warmhearted and are immediately devoted to the baby. Annie worries that some young woman is desperate and wonders if someone at the nearby RAF airfield is indirectly responsible. Not, of course, handsome Wing Commander William Chambers who Annie got to know by treating the pilots for minor ailments. Alas, he has a beautiful, aristocratic fiancée – but with a dreadful personality, so we know she won’t last (if only that were true IRL). But Annie doesn’t have time to fixate on William, she needs to find the baby’s mother before social services removes little “Clara” permanently for adoption by a suitable family.

My Impression: Curzon portrays a close-knit community that, with a few exceptions, has embraced not just the airbase of men fighting the Nazis every night but also a hamlet on the edge of Bramble Heath where Polish refugees have moved into abandoned cottages. It helps that among the refugees are Polish pilots, led by William:

A month ago, he’d been the first of the Bramble Heath boys to take out five enemy planes in one sortie, achieve a strange sort of fame for his exploits in a world where topping league tables of downed enemy aircraft offered a celebrity all its own. Wing Commander Chambers topped the league at Bramble Heath, whether among the British pilots or their Polish comrades, and he was never short of admiring glances or drinks on the house when he ventured into the village.

I wondered about nursing school in Britain prior to WWII and how Annie was trained but the story focuses on the baby and William, who was adopted himself and takes an interest in the situation. The hat box in which the baby arrived is from Miss Clara’s Millinery in East Grimstead, so Annie calls the child Clara and visits the shop for clues about the mother. There is also a ration book but the identifying information was removed. The story is sweet but fairly predictable – as when Annie sees a pilot parachuting from the wreckage of his Spitfire, kicks her motorbike into life and rushes to the location:

She saw the white of the parachute first, illuminated by the fierce flames of the inferno that had claimed both the Spitfire and the Messerschmitt. The man was sprawled face down on the grass, unmoving, but the fire that had engulfed him had mercifully been extinguished. For an awful moment Annie was sure he had perished, but as she drew closer she heard him give a low moan of pain.

She dropped down beside him. ‘I’m Annie, I’m a nurse,’ she told him as she reached for the pulse at his wrist. His flying gauntlets were burnt to a crisp, his skin hot, but his pulse was still strong.

‘Annie . . .’ he gasped, and she realised that he was English, even though that simple word sounded as though it took every ounce of strength he possessed. “It’s William.’

William’s recovery is slow and painful but it is interesting to read about his experiences in a special Burn recovery unit led by Sir Archibald McIndoe. He was a New Zealand-born surgeon who pioneered treatment for badly burned airmen at the Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead. His innovative plastic surgery techniques benefitted Royal Air Force pilots or bomber crewmen, as well as airmen from Canada, New Zealand, the United States, Australia and Eastern Europe.

I always enjoy books about the homefront and this is the first in the A Village at War series, of which there are three so far. I learned about this book from Catherine Curzon’s delightful Twitter account which features historical dresses and costumes. This series is co-written with Helen Barrell.

Source: Library. This is my fifteenth book for Marg's 2024 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge and my third of 20 Books of Summer.