Vera Brittain and the First World War
Page 19
Oxford
Somerville for Women. An Oxford College 1879-1993 by Pauline Adams (1996) provides historical background for Vera Brittain’s time at Somerville.
Vera Brittain’s The Dark Tide (1923, reprinted 1999) is a roman à clef, which offers a thinly disguised account of Vera Brittain’s return to Somerville after the war.
VADs, First World War nurses and hospitals
Lyn Macdonald’s The Roses of No Man’s Land (1980) is a pioneering study, using first-hand testimony, of the British volunteer nurses of the First World War.
The relevant chapter in Sharon Ouditt, Fighting Forces, Writing Women. Identity and Ideology in the First World War (1994), looks at the experiences of Voluntary Aid Detachment nurses and the ways in which they were portrayed in writing.
Janet S. K. Watson, Fighting Different Wars. Experience, Memory, and the First World War in Britain (2004) considers the relations between trained and amateur nurses during the war.
The website ‘Lost Hospitals of London’ (http://ezitis.myzen.co.uk/index.html, accessed 21 August 2014) contains many interesting details about London hospitals, including the First London General, Camberwell, during the First World War.
Douglas Gill, in his article ‘No Compromise with Truth. Vera Brittain 1917’, Krug Und Literatur, V, 1999, 67–95, first identified the discrepancies in Vera Brittain’s account of her nursing at Etaples. The official records of the 24 General at Etaples, covering Vera Brittain’s time there, are in the National Archives, WO 95/4085.
War books and the writing of Testament of Youth
All the manuscripts of the early versions of Testament of Youth are preserved in the Vera Brittain Archive at McMaster University.
There are interesting discussions of War books, and the controversies they inspired, which I have drawn on here, in: Gary Sheffield, Forgotten Victory. The First World War: Myths and Realities (2001); Hugh Cecil, The Flower of Battle. British Fiction Writers of the First World War (1995), which includes a chapter on R. H. Mottram, and the Spanish Farm Trilogy; Samuel Hynes, A War Imagined. The First World War and English Culture (1990); and Janet S. K. Watson, Fighting Different Wars. Experience, Memory, and the First World War in Britain (2004).
Women’s Writing on the First World War, edited by Agnes Cardinal, Dorothy Goldman and Judith Hattaway (1999) contains interesting extracts from a large number of female writers, including Mary Borden. Claire M. Tylee, The Great War and Women’s Consciousness. Images of Militarism and Womanhood in Women’s Writings, 1914-64 (1990), includes an extensive bibliography of women’s writings about the war.
Biographical material about the writing of Testament of Youth can be found in Selected Letters of Winifred Holtby and Vera Brittain, edited by Vera Brittain and Geoffrey Handley-Taylor (1960); and in Chronicle of Friendship. Vera Brittain’s Diary of the Thirties 1932-1939, edited by Alan Bishop (1986).
Phyllis Bentley’s unpublished diary is housed in the Calderdale section of West Yorkshire Archives Department, Calderdale Central Library, Halifax (PB/C/14/1). For a description of the parts of it relating to Vera Brittain, see Dave Russell, ‘Province, Metropolis, and the Literary Career of Phyllis Bentley in the 1930s’, The Historical Journal, 51, 3, 2008, 719–40.
Some of the best literary critical analysis of Testament of Youth, which I have drawn on, is by Jean E. Kennard in Vera Brittain and Winifred Holtby. A Working Partnership (1989).
The myth of the lost generation is analysed in demographic terms by J. M. Winter in The Great War and the British People (1985).
Dramatisations
BBC Television’s five-part adaptation of Testament of Youth (1979) is available on DVD from Acorn Media (2010).
For background to the 1979 television series, see the article by Philippa Toomey, ‘Vera Brittain and the Testament that came late to life’, The Times, 9 August 1980.
BBC Radio Four’s 15-part adaptation of Letters from a Lost Generation is available on CD from BBC Audio (2014).
Rachel Beaumont’s article (2014) on ‘The Personal Inspiration behind Kenneth MacMillan’s Gloria’ can be found online at http://www.roh.org.uk/news/the-personal-tragedy-that-inspired-kenneth-macmillans-gloria (accessed 21 August 2014).
Index
Abyssinia 152
According to Mark 194–5
Agate, James 141
Albert 73, 77
Aldington, Richard 125, 127
Death of a Hero 125
Alison, Rosie 173, 177, 181, 182, 184
All Quiet on the Western Front 125
All Quiet on the Western Front (film) 188
Anderby Wold 116
Annual Register 132
‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’ 164
Armstrong, Moira 163
Arras, Battle of 148
Asquith, H. H. 27
Atwell, Hayley 184
autobiography 123, 125, 130, 143
BAFTA see British Academy of Film and Television Awards
Bailey, Jonathan 184
ballet 167–9
Barker, Pat 192
Toby’s Room 192
Bayley, John 185
BBC see British Broadcasting Corporation
BBC Films 169, 176, 178, 182, 184
Beaumont, Rachel 168
Belgium
German invasion 28
Bennett, Arnold 2
Bentley, Phyllis 135–6, 137
diary 136,
Inheritance 135
‘O Dreams, O Destinations’ 136
Bergner, Elisabeth 155
Berry, Paul 197–202, 207, 208, 211
letters 200
Bervon, Ann Isabel (Belle) 38, 40, 41
Bervon, Bill (Uncle Bill) 89
Bervon, Edith (later Edith Brittain) 4, 6
Bervon, Emma 4
Bervon, Florence 8–9, 17, 40
Bervon, Inglis 4
Bevan, Lucy 182
Birdsong 176–7
Bishop, Alan 175
Blunden, Edmund 125, 129
Undertones of War 125, 129
Bond, Michael 182
Bonneville, Hugh 185
Bookseller, The 161
Borden, Mary 128
Forbidden Zone, The 128
Born 1925 198
Boy of My Heart 121
review 121
Boyle, Consolata 173
Brahms, Johannes
German Requiem 77
Bridges, Robert 131
Testament of Beauty 131
Brief Encounter 174, 185
Brighton
Grand Hotel 64
Brighton Gazette 92
Britannic 80, 81
British Academy of Film and Television Awards (BAFTA) 166
British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) 157–8, 161, 164, 165
Radio 4 176
British Museum 132
British Red Cross Society 132
Brittain, Edith 8, 14, 15, 22, 32, 40, 50, 73, 74, 83, 85, 99–101, 144
mental health 99–100
Brittain, Edward Harold 5, 6–7, 15, 18, 19, 20, 22, 24, 25, 28, 34, 35, 40, 43, 47, 54–5, 69, 71, 73, 74, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 84–5, 87, 89, 90, 92–3, 96, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 111, 113, 121–2, 130, 136, 137, 142, 145, 147, 148, 150, 157, 163, 165, 176, 181, 184, 191–2, 202–13
death 101, 115, 191–2, 202, 204, 209–13
education 8
enlistment 32–3
grave 211–13
letters 92–3, 132
Military Cross 79, 203, 205
portrait 205
Brittain, Frank 145
Brittain, Thomas (VB’s great-grandfather) 2
Brittain, Thomas Arthur (‘Arthur’; VB’s father) 2, 4, 6, 7, 14, 15, 29, 32, 34, 64, 99–101, 114, 135, 138, 144, 147
mental health 4, 135
suicide 102, 152
Brittain, Vera
ambivalence towards the war 47, 146
appearance 12
archive 175, 198, 200, 202, 204, 210
biogra
phies 175, 196–202
Born 1925 198
celebrity 152
character 14
children see also Catlin, John Edward and Catlin, Shirley Vivian (later Shirley Williams) 105
‘Chronicle of Youth, A’ 116
Dark Tide, The 105, 116
death 157
departure from Malta 90
diary 13–14, 15, 22, 24, 27, 29, 33, 36, 38, 41, 42, 44, 57, 59, 62, 69, 75, 78, 111, 113, 116, 117, 131, 136, 146, 175
early education 7, 8–11
exhibition to Somerville 18
family obligations 100
feminism 9, 14, 42
finals 104
food poisoning 81
foreign service 76
friendships 75
German patients 95–6, 149, 151
‘German Ward, The’ 115
grief at Roland’s death 71
hatred of Buxton 14,
Honourable Estate 192, 204, 211
intended marriage to Victor Richardson 90
journalism 104, 113
lack of humour 162
‘Lament of the Demobilised, The’ 116
‘Letter to Peace-Lovers’ 153,
letters 27, 44–5, 48, 49, 69, 79, 83, 85, 87, 89, 94, 96–7, 113, 117, 129, 131, 146, 149, 150, 156, 175, 176, 200
life at Oxford 36–7, 49
literary ambitions 103–4
literary estate 174–5
literary standing 195
love of clothes 172–3
marriage 105, 199
marriage plans 43
marriage proposals 13, 54
Massacre by Bombing 154,
‘May Morning’ 115
mental health 103–4
Not Without Honour 105, 117
novels see also individual novels by name 109–13, 118, 205
nursing 53, 60, 76, 81, 83–4, 95–7, 103, 150
overseas posting 80
pacifism 97, 115, 118, 130, 144–5, 149, 151, 152, 153–4, 189, 195, 198
parentage 2–4
personality 5, 36, 104, 197
portrait 195
pregnancy 131
‘Reflective Record’ 13, 44, 116
religious beliefs 15
Seed of Chaos 154
social life in Malta 84
‘Superfluous Woman, The’ 116
Testament of Experience 122
‘To My Brother’ 79–80, 116
Verses of a V.A.D. 114–16
‘War Generation: Ave, The’ 167–8
war poetry 68
Brittains Limited 2
Broadcasting Press Guild 166
Brooke, Rupert 48–9, 81, 163, 176
‘Dead, The’ 58
1914 48–9, 58–9,
sonnets 59
Brooklyn 183
Burgon, Geoffrey 164
Buxton
Devonshire Hospital 53, 57
Hydropathic Hotel 12
Pavilion Gardens 33
Town Hall 17, 28
Caine, Hall 21
Calendar Girls 181
Callil, Carmen 159, 196–7, 199, 200
Camberwell
First London General Hospital 1, 60
Cambrai, Battle of 96
Campbell, Cheryl 163, 166
awards 166
Caporetto 99
Cary, Joyce 206
Catlin, Delinda 160, 205–6
Catlin, George 105, 133, 135, 136, 137, 138–9, 144, 155, 160, 196, 205
Roman Catholicism 105
Catlin, John Edward 105, 122, 135, 198, 199
Catlin, Shirley Vivian (later Shirley Williams) 105, 131, 198
Cause, The 144
Chancellor, Anna 184
Chatto & Windus 196
Chronicle 29
‘Chronicle of Youth, A’ 116
Civil Service, Indian 7
class 50, 51, 97, 148–9
Cornell University 105
cowardice 32
Daily Express 141
Daily Mail 20, 141
Daily Telegraph 143
Darbishire, Helen 48
Dardanelles expedition 86
Dark Tide, The 105, 116, 119
David Copperfield (Tree’s production) 41
‘Dead, The’ 58
Death of a Hero 125
Defence, Ministry of 206
Delmar, Rosalind 159
Dench, Judi 185
Dennant, Gertrude 91
‘Dirge of Dead Sisters, The’ 138
disarmament 104
Downton Abbey 158
Duffus, R. L. 142
Edinburgh Festival 161
Egerton, Taron 184
11th Sherwood Foresters 35, 71, 98
Eliot, George 14
Felix Holt 14
Ellington, Maurice 29
Ellis-Fermor, Una 36
Emmanuel College 24
Erskine Macdonald 114
Etaples 98, 113, 114, 115, 187
hospitals 93–4, 95, 99, 113, 139, 149–50
Falls, Cyril 128
Farewell to Arms, A 156
Fascism 152
Faulks, Sebastian 176
Birdsong 176–7
Felix Holt 14
feminism 9, 20–21, 42, 118, 130, 197
equal rights 104, 144
feminist critics 158
First Aid 35
First London General Hospital 60, 62, 76, 111, 129
Firth, Jonathan 176
Fishmongers’ Hall Hospital 74
Fontana 164
Forbidden Zone, The 128
4th Norfolks 34, 35
Fowles, John 176
French Lieutenant’s Woman, The 176
Fraser, Ian 90
French Lieutenant’s Woman, The (film) 176
Front 55, 62, 128, 148
Fry, Edith 9
Galeka 81
Gallipoli 86
Gallipoli campaign 81
Game of Thrones 172
Garnett, Jerry 122
gender discrimination 6–7
gender equality 9
‘German Ward, The’ 115
Germany
bombing 153–4
economic blockade 153
invasion of Belgium 28
Gloria (ballet) 167–9, 189
choreography 168–9
Gollancz, Victor 135, 137
Goodbye to All That 125
government propaganda 50
Grange School 8
Grant Richards (publisher) 117
Graves, Robert 49, 125, 129
Goodbye to All That 125
Graves, Rupert 176
Great War, The (documentary series) 157
Grey, Sir Edward 28
Haley, William 158
Hardy, Rob 174
Harington, Kit 172, 184
Harry Potter 177
HBO 172
Heath-Jones, Louise 8–9, 11, 17
Hébuterne sector 58
trenches 58
‘Hédauville’ 65, 71, 105
Hemingway, Ernest 156
Farewell to Arms, A 156
Henson, Jon 182
heroism 29, 47, 48, 51, 79, 80, 151
Heyday Films 169, 173, 177
Heyman, David 177–8
Highland Fifth Garrison Artillery 168
historians, feminist 158
Holland, Ruth 129
Lost Generation, The 129
Holtby, Winifred 5, 104, 105, 116, 117, 129, 131, 133, 137, 138, 155–6, 162, 164, 175, 189, 197, 199
Anderby Wold 116
archive 200
death 152
health 135
journalism 104
South Riding 175
Honourable Estate 192, 204–5, 211
Hoskins, Bob 163
Hours, The 186
Hudson, Brigadier C. E. 206–7, 211
memoirs 207–9, 210
Hughes, Norah 36
Hulke, Sally 163
I Have Bee
n Young 144
Im Westen Nichts Neues 125
Imperial War Museum 132, 158–9
‘Women at War, 1914–18’ (exhibition) 159
Imtarfa Hospital 81
Indian Civil Service 7
Inheritance 135
internationalism 104, 189
Iron Lady, The 173
It’s a Great War 128, 129
Italian front 98–9, 100
James, Clive 164
James, P. D. 160
Jameson, Storm 141
Job To Live, A 194
Johnson, Celia 185
Journey’s End 125, 126, 127
Kent, James 174, 182, 186–7
Kidman, Nicole 186
Kipling, Rudyard 138
‘Dirge of Dead Sisters, The’ 138
Kitchener, Lord 50, 169
enlistment poster 169
Korda, Alexander 161
Lads 211–12
‘Lament of the Demobilised, The’ 116
Larkin, Philip 185
Latham, Harold 137
le Carré, John 161
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy 161
League of Nations 151, 152
League of Nations Union 104
Lean, David 174
Brief Encounter 174
Leazell, Eric 202
Lee, Mary 128, 129
It’s a Great War 128, 129
Leete, Alfred 169
enlistment poster 169
Leighton, Clare 21, 40–41, 55, 64, 70, 120, 132
Leighton, Evelyn 21, 55
Leighton, Marie Connor 20–21, 24, 38, 40, 55, 70, 114, 120–21, 132
Boy of My Heart 121
Leighton, Robert 20, 55, 70, 102, 114
Leighton, Roland 1, 19–22, 25, 33, 34, 35, 36, 38, 39, 40, 42–7, 48, 49, 50, 53–60, 62, 63, 76, 81, 88, 89, 115, 119, 120, 121, 128, 130, 131, 136, 139, 141, 142, 146, 149, 155, 156, 158, 165, 169–70, 172, 175, 176, 195, 197, 203
appearance 20
conversion to Roman Catholicism 71,
death 64–5, 68, 69, 71, 73, 75, 79, 80, 84, 85, 113, 116, 145, 188
feminism 20
grave 73
‘Hédauville’ 65, 71, 105
letters 44–5, 47, 62, 63, 132–3, 175
marriage proposal 54
poetry 132
relationship with his mother 21
‘Villanelle’ 46–7, 121
‘Letter to Peace-Lovers’ 153
Letters from a Lost Generation 175
Lively, Penelope 194–5
According to Mark 194–5
London Film Productions 161
London Weekend Television 158
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth 6
Loos, Battle of 60
casualties 60
Lorimer, Hilda 38, 49, 51
lost generation 148–9
Lost Generation, The (novel) 129
Louvencourt 73