by Liz Trenow
She whispers, “I’m so glad you came. Of course I forgive you. I just hope you can forgive yourself.”
Because my throat is clogged with sadness, I just say, “I love you.”
Epilogue
The girl pulls over a plastic chair and sits down, tucking her long legs under the hospital bed. The old woman’s hands, brown mottled skin draped loosely over visible bones, are neatly arranged across her chest. As the girl takes one into her own hand, she is surprised by its warmth. She looks intently into the inert gray face, its closed eyes, the slack lips moving with each shallow breath.
“Gran? Can you hear me? I’ve got two very important things to tell you. Are you listening?”
There is no response from the bed, but she carries on.
“First of all, you know Stefan’s Hay Camp note you gave me? Dad took it to get it valued and it’s worth thousands! Amazing. He says I should pay for Uni with it, but I’m going to keep it with the rings to remember him by, like you said. And pass it on to my grandchildren. Now, this is the really important thing, so listen carefully.”
With her other hand the girl unfolds the heavy cream bond, with its neat print and official crest, and reads out loud:
Dear Miss Merrison,
Your enquiry about the deaths of Sgt. Stephen Holmes and his colleagues on or about 15th May 1944 has been passed to me by the Office for Information.
I can confirm that Sgt. Holmes, formerly of Royal Pioneer Corps, joined the Special Operations Executive in January 1944, and after a period of training, was one of twelve men selected for a mission to be parachuted into France as part of advance operations in preparation for the D-Day landings.
Regarding the accidents that killed Sgt. Holmes and the other men that night, there is no evidence of what caused them. One possibility is that the plane’s altimeter was faulty, causing the pilot to fly too low at the drop points. This could have resulted in a miscalculation in timing for pulling the rip-cords, and thus landing too fast.
However, I can tell you that the parachutes used by paratroops such as the SOE operatives in 1944 were almost certainly not made of silk. By this point in the war, silk canopies were used only where cockpit space was very limited, i.e., for fighter pilots, but for all other purposes such as dropping paratroops, equipment, and supplies, parachutes of cotton and/or nylon had been in general use for some months.
I hope this information is of some use in your research.
The girl puts the letter down and looks into her grandmother’s skeletal face. The eyes are still closed, sunk deep and purple in their sockets.
“You see? I was right. It wasn’t your silk. Not your fault,” she whispers. “Please, Gran? Please tell me you can hear me.”
The room is silent except for the sigh of the old woman’s breathing, the hum of the heating pipes, and the squeak of shoes on the linoleum outside.
And then the girl feels something. She cannot see them moving, but the bony fingers press almost imperceptibly into her own.
Is she imagining it?
No, she dismisses the thought.
She is sure of it.
Acknowledgments
The Last Telegram probably never would have been written without the encouragement, thoughtful reading, and robust feedback of my tutor, Harriett Gilbert, on the MA in Creative Writing at City University in London and my fellow students, who continue to be a great support network. Simon Edge wisely encouraged me to write about my family background in silk weaving, and my great friend Anne Sherer Broom was a constant source of inspiration, not to mention her knowledge of all things Jewish, and her brilliant suggestion that I should read Arthur Miller’s play, All My Sons.
Although the plot and all of the characters are entirely fictional, parts of the story are based on real events, and for this, I owe a great debt to the memories of three remarkable men. From my father, the late Peter Walters, I learned how they kept the mill going during the Second World War, when most others closed, by weaving parachute silk. The family had become increasingly concerned about the plight of their many Jewish friends and business colleagues in Europe, which prompted them to sponsor five German boys to travel to England and work at the mill. One of them, Roger Lynton, fell in love with a local girl and, after internment in Australia and fighting for the Allies in North Africa, returned to work at the mill, married, had a family, and lived a long and happy life. I also am indebted to the late Anthony Gaddum, formerly Upper Bailiff of the Worshipful Company of Weavers, who told me about the extraordinary mission undertaken by his father, Peter, to source vital silk supplies from the Middle East at the height of the war.
I am grateful to David and Julius Walters for hosting a memorable tea party for former parachute weavers at the mill, and to Freda Baker for organizing it. The memories I recorded that afternoon provided rich material. Richard Humphries, with his love of all things historic, marvelously produced an original wartime parachute burst testing machine, and Andy Cowley, Engineering Manager of Airborne Systems Ltd., provided invaluable technical information about wartime parachute manufacture.
My daughters Becky and Polly and my friend Mel Billowes read early drafts and gave helpful feedback, and other good friends and family members have provided unwavering encouragement, especially my husband, David, who has been consistently positive in believing that the book would, eventually, find a publisher.
Finally, huge thanks to the tireless work of Caroline Hardman, who recognized the early potential of the book and guided me toward developing it into a fully formed novel, and to Shana Drehs of Sourcebooks, who has turned that dream of publication into a reality.
Reading Group Guide
1. Apart from Lily, did you have a favorite character? Which one? Why did that particular character appeal to you? What was it about that particular story line that drew you in?
2. To start with, Lily has little ambition or interest in silk but ends up managing a factory. How unusual do you think this was for a British woman in the first half of the twentieth century?
3. How does the character development of Lily tell us about the impact of war on attitudes to women working outside the home? Would this differ between the UK and the USA?
4. What does the novel tell us about the nature of grief and how we grieve?
5. Why do you think that Britain was initially reluctant to accept Jewish refugees when they already knew that they were being persecuted?
6. And why, having accepted the Kindertransport children, were they later treated so badly and deported as “enemy aliens”?
7. Discuss how you might have responded, in 1938 Britain, had you been working in a war supplies industry and discovered the boss’s daughter was having an affair with a German fellow-worker.
8. Is Robbie a sympathetic villain? What made him the way he was? Identify the moments when we—and Lily—are able to feel sympathy for him. By the end of the book, can we find it in our hearts to forgive him?
9. What do the experiences of Stefan and other events in the book tell us about the wider impact on society of religious or racial persecution, and the refugee experience through the ages?
10. What does the novel tell us about the psychological corrosiveness of guilt? If you have read or seen the play All My Sons, what does The Last Telegram owe to Arthur Miller’s exploration of this topic?
11. What difference does it make to Lily—and to the rest of the story—when Gwen admits that she is gay?
12. Even though Lily and her problems with the silk are entirely fictional, the author’s inspiration was firmly rooted in real people and real events. What problems or difficulties can you imagine that this approach might create for an author?
13. Lily never really explains to herself why she lied to Robbie about the faulty silk, but can you identify the circumstances and reasons which led to that fateful lie?
14. Can a lie ever be considered morally defensible?
15. Whose fault was it that the silk was not up to the required standards? Mi
chael? Bert? Gwen? Lily?
16. How are the present and past tense used in the novel? How does this contribute to your ease of reading and/or understanding?
17. The novel includes a lot of technical detail about silk weaving and parachutes. Did this add to your pleasure when reading it?
18. In the final scene, does Lily understand what her granddaughter tells her?
A Conversation with the Author
1.What was your inspiration for writing The Last Telegram?
I was brought up in the world of silk with my father, brother, and now my nephew successively managing the company, which is still weaving today after three hundred years in the same family. I spent my early years in the house next to the mill, and as a teenager spent school holidays working there. Perhaps because of this familiarity, I didn’t at first think of it as a potential setting for a novel until a friend pointed out what a uniquely interesting place it was.
As my parents grew older, I decided to interview them while their memories were still strong, and I found out that while many other mills closed, the company survived the Second World War by making parachute silk. The critical “finishing” process was actually outsourced to specialists, and they encountered initial problems in achieving the correct porosity. The London office of the firm was bombed in 1939 with the loss of all their archives, records, and accounts, though mercifully no one was killed.
My father also told me how, before the war, the family had sponsored five Jewish Kindertransport boys who were later interned. One of them returned to fight with the Allied forces and came back to marry his sweetheart, ending up as a senior manager in the company and lifelong friend of the family. There was a problem with silk supplies in the early part of the war, and I was fortunate enough to interview the son of the yarn merchant who was actually sent to the Middle East to find new sources. My uncle John spent five years in a German prisoner of war camp, and I talked to him about his experiences and learned much from his letters, which had been carefully saved by my grandparents.
So although Lily and her problems with the silk are entirely fictional, as are all my characters and what happens to them, my inspiration was certainly rooted in real people and real events.
2.To start with, Lily seems to have little ambition or interest in silk but ends up managing a factory. How realistic is that for a woman in the first half of the twentieth century?
Life in Britain during both wars was very tough but tremendously liberating for women, providing the opportunity to learn new skills and work in areas where they never would have been accepted before. After the 1914–1918 war, many of them, sometimes reluctantly, relinquished their jobs to returning soldiers. But after 1945, women had discovered how liberating and satisfying work outside the home could be, and it became more widely accepted that they too could have careers, even if they didn’t get equal pay with men. I wanted Lily’s story to reflect that growing confidence and acceptance of women in the world of work.
3.If Britain was happy to accept young Jewish refugees before the war, how come they were deported as “enemy aliens” once the war started?
Before the war, Britain was a place of refuge for many fleeing persecution, but in 1940, after the Nazis had stormed into France and were clearly preparing to invade Britain, there was growing fear at both official and local levels about spies and infiltrators. Internment was a perhaps understandable reaction to that fear, and was eventually extended to all men and boys holding passports from enemy countries aged sixteen and over, regardless of their profession or the length of time they had lived in the UK (women were apparently not seen as such a threat!). Their subsequent treatment was in some cases scandalous—as with the 2,500 sent to Australia on the Dunera.
4.Why did you decide to introduce a gay character in Gwen? And were you tempted to let Lily and Gwen have a full-fledged affair?
I’m not sure where Gwen came from, or why she turned out to be gay! She just arrived, freckles and all, and I knew she was going to be an interesting and important character. My great-aunt Phoebe was a fiercely independent career woman who lived with a female “companion” and no one in the family ever thought this was unusual, so perhaps she was a model for Gwen. I thought about having her seduce Lily, but decided in the end that it would have been out of character for her to be predatory or for Lily to succumb, however vulnerable she was at the time.
5.The novel includes some technical details about silk weaving and parachutes. How much research did you have to do?
For a while, I became quite a parachute geek—reading all kinds of technical manuals and talking to experts. The silk information was easier because of my father’s experience. I was also privileged to meet some of the weavers, now in their eighties and nineties, who actually wove parachute silk during the war. We held a wonderful tea party for them at the mill and their memories were invaluable. But I’m no expert, and research can only take you so far—and I am sure that some of my technical detail will be found wanting by those who know better.
6.How easy was it to switch from writing newspaper journalism to writing fiction?
Surprisingly difficult! Although being a journalist means I’m not afraid of facing a blank page, writing fiction is like running a marathon instead of a sprint. With journalism, the characters and the plot are fixed, but in fiction it is all down to your imagination and you have to make sure that the characters and their responses and actions are credible and logical, while keeping them exciting and interesting. If you are lucky, there comes a time when you are so “into” the story that your characters start doing unexpected things and new characters arrive uninvited, and those moments are great fun. The disciplines of journalism—deadlines, accuracy, and consistency—are helpful, but writing fiction is a completely different craft with its own special enjoyment.
7.The novel is full of sad events and yet manages to remain hopeful. Did you know how the novel would end when you started writing it?
As a feminist and the mother of two daughters, I wanted to write a coming-of-age story in which a young woman discovers her self-confidence in the world of work and becomes accepted on equal terms with men. But the trajectory of a novel can never be that simple—there must be trials and tragedies along the way, and the wartime setting provides plenty of these. When I started The Last Telegram, all I really knew was that it would be set in the mill during the war, that Lily would fall in love with Stefan, and somehow would end up running the company. Very little else was certain. Until I got close to the final chapters, I wasn’t entirely sure how it would end, except that she would have to make peace with herself, both in relation to Gwen and to the mistake she believes she made.
About the Author
Photo by David Islip
Liz Trenow’s family has been silk weavers for nearly three hundred years, and she grew up next to the mill in Sudbury, Suffolk, which is the oldest family owned silk company in Britain and one of a handful still operating today. Liz worked in the mill for a few months but decided instead to become a journalist and spent fifteen years with regional and national newspapers and on BBC radio and television news. The Last Telegram is her first novel. Visit her online at www.liztrenow.com.