Jennifer Ryan's Blog - Posts Tagged "britain"

When I first sat down to write The Chilbury Ladies’ Choir, I had the painstaking task of deciding where to set the story. My criteria were simple: it had to be somewhere in Kent, a location that would have been impacted by both the 300,000 men rescued from the Dunkirk beaches to Dover and the air fights and bombs during the Battle of Britain.

But crucially, it had to be a place of beauty, both in the countryside setting and in the village itself—preferably old, with plenty of listed buildings around an ancient square. There would be a manor house nearby, one that had a profound impact on the life of the people in the village.

Before I got on to thirdly and fourthly, a distant memory came to me, and I recalled a place from my past, dusty with age and uncovered for many years. I brushed off the cobwebs and took a good look. It was Chilham, a tiny, beautiful village nestling in the north Downs near Canterbury in Kent.

In my twenties, I’d spent an idyllic summer there, staying with friends on a farm in an oast house, which is a nineteenth-century building originally made for drying hops to make beer, with an iconic conical white-tipped roof. It was blissful. We’d draw back the curtains every morning to hazy sunshine over fields of ripening wheat and fresh green pastures with frolicking lambs. It was a sheep farm, raising lambs for market, and part of the oast-house rent was helping with the lambing in February—standing in a cold barn every night grabbing little hind legs and pulling out babies, cleaning them and the all-important mother-lamb bonding moment.

That year there was only one case of maternal rejection; the farmer covered the rejected lamb with the coat of one who had been born dead and presented him to the dead-lamb’s mother, who took one sniff and adopted him, thank goodness. Otherwise it would have been the farmer hand-rearing the poor little lamb.

The village was a mile away, and we would go there to the little tea room or, more usually, to the iconic pub on the corner of the square. The White Horse is everything that you’d imagine an old, traditional English pub to be: a whitewashed eighteenth-century building with low ceilings and cozy crooks and crannies to sit and have private discussions and a more open space by the bar for groups of hikers or horse meets. The walls are covered with horse-riding paraphernalia, horse shoes and pictures of gentry on horseback—icons of a former era.

A huge open fireplace spread a wonderful warmth in the winter, and the windows opened in the summer to let in the scents of pinky red fuchsia and begonia from the hanging baskets in the square. Good atmosphere lends itself to great conversation, and I recall discussing meaty topics inside it’s heady interior, sitting beside the fire late into the night.

The village square is impossibly picturesque: a rectangular center surrounded by tiny, timbered Tudor shops, their little shop windows crisscrossed with old lead strips. The shops—now little cafes, a post office, and antiques dealers—would have been the bustling mainstay of village life, selling daily meat, bread, and vegetables through eras without refrigeration. The space in the center of the square is currently used as a small car park for the locals, which reminds us that the village is still a functioning place, a busy little spot and not just a museum piece. That is, unless they’re filming there.

Inevitably, a village of such beauty is often used as the backdrop for historical movies. All the locals and the cars are shooed off, and horse-drawn carriages and ladies in long frocks are brought in for a TV or movie adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma or Moll Flanders. Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot have also been filmed here, as well as The Canterbury Tales, which is very apt as Chilham was traditionally the pilgrims’ last rest, just six miles from Canterbury Cathedral.

The crumbling stone church sits on one side of the square. It was built in the fifteenth century, although there has been a church here since the seventh century. The graveyard is prosaic and sinister; there’s a rumor that the remains of Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury murdered by King Henry’s knights in 1170, are buried in an anonymous grave here.

On the opposite side of the square lies the gateway to the dramatic heft of Chilham Castle. The main building, a Jacobean manor house, was built in 1616 beside the ruins of a medieval castle keep, built on the defensive hilltop location in AD 709 by Wihtred, King of Kent, to fight off neighboring kingdoms, notably Wessex who clearly had their eye on it.

The village sprung up originally to service the fortress, and then the manor house, with food, soldiers, farm laborers, and servants. It probably had its own ironsmith as well as the pub, shop, post office and even a cricket ground by the nineteenth century. The twentieth century saw the gradual end of the power of manor houses, and when the lord of the manor died at the beginning of the Second World War, Chilham Castle was used as a military base. At the end of the war, unowned and run by trustees, the house was put up for sale. The estate—and the village—were in peril.

It’s hard to imagine an entire village in crisis, with jobs and homes lost as the estate was broken up and sold, the heart of the village lost. The multitude of servants dispersed; the shops and blacksmiths and pubs replete of their customers; the square deserted.
Little by little, the village clawed its way back to life, local hops for beer, lambs from the hilly pastures, crops of all kinds. People began working further away, Canterbury, Ashford, London. Then a different type of person began to come. Tourists came to see the buildings, to witness the past, to understand the way we used to live.

The setting was perfect for the book, and I fictionalized the name, and so The Chilbury Ladies’ Choir was born. Every time I wrote about Mrs. Tilling bustling into the square, or Venetia knocking on one of the old row houses, the delightful village of Chilham was fresh in my mind, as if I was still spiritually there, and always had been.
The Chilbury Ladies' Choir

Today is Party Granny's Birthday, and I can't help remembering her round form bustling around the kitchen preparing a feast for a party, a glass of Pink Gin not far away. She'd often sing to herself, sometimes a hymn or an old music-hall tune like "My Old Man Said Follow the Van, and Don't Dilly-Dally on the Way." She'd forget the words, or possibly be so caught up with chopping parsley to pay attention, and always begin humming tunelessly instead. What a character she was!

I wish she was here today to enjoy having a book based on her life: she would have loved it, and would have made sure she was invited to every event to speak about the war. The Chilbury Ladies' Choir would be her pride and joy.

She would possibly have been 97 today, maybe 98; we were never too sure about her age as she continually took a few years off, which was so like her. Her philosophy was that life was for living, loving, and, of course, partying.

Wherever you are now, Party Granny, I hope you're celebrating!

The Chilbury Ladies' Choir

When I was growing up, we had a jovial grandmother who we called Party Granny, and she loved nothing better than a good sing-song, telling us frequently that without her trusty choir they’d “never have made it through the Second World War”. They sang through the Battle of Britain, through the heartbreak of separation and death of husbands and sons on the front, and through the days after the town was bombed to smithereens, taking several much-loved locals with it. It wasn’t a large choir or, for that matter, a terribly good one.

“We made everyone laugh we were so awful,” Party Granny would chortle. “But it was the trying that counted. It made us feel better, knowing we were together. Knowing that if anything happened, there’d be a chorus of women backing you up, offering warmth, support, and a jarringly off-kilter rendition of ‘The Lord’s My Shepherd’.”

But how? I found myself asking. What exactly was it in Party Granny’s choir experience that made it such an uplifting, bonding experience? I decided to dig around and find some answers.

The first answer I found in my search was, of course, hormones. I say of course because I feel that I already knew that, mostly from singing along to the radio in the car. That feeling of a wonderful buzz of, well, what is it?

Endorphins. They’re the ones produced in the pituitary gland as a form of uplifting reward, making us feel on top of the world. They are usually released to stop us from feeling pain when, for example, we are running a marathon, providing a euphoric high not unlike opioids—in fact, the very term endorphin is made out of the words endogenous and morphine: a morphine made by naturally by the body.

Oxytocin is another hormone linked with singing. It lessens anxiety and enhances social bonding, making us feel at one with the world. But hold on a minute! Where have I heard that word oxytocin? Isn’t it the drug used to induce labor during childbirth?

Yes, that’s the one. It’s the hormone produced during labor and breastfeeding, which explains the social-bonding element: mothers need to bond with their babies. A number of scientific studies have found a rise in oxytocin in choristers’ saliva after singing, which might explain why choir members bond as easily as they do.

In contrast, Cortisol—the stress hormone—has been found to decrease with song. Every time we feel that fight or flight reaction, a surge of cortisol is produced, along with adrenaline, causing our body to stop everything and prepare for the fight. This, of course, is rather disastrous for all the other bodily processes, which have to wait until the cortisol wears off to get back to normal. Singing helps to take us out of fight or flight mode, letting our bodies get back to their usual business and making us feel a lot better along the way.

Odd as it may sound, another study found that, after group singing, the singers’ heartbeats become synchronized, like a type of guided group meditation. No wonder singing together makes us feel bonded.
“I thought it was about breathing, all that oxygen surging through our bodies,” Party Granny would ponder.

There is that, and the physical workout it gives your lungs, back, and posture.
So it’s not surprising that people who belong to choirs get a positivity boost. Studies in the UK and Australia have found that if you sing in a choir you are less likely to suffer from depression or loneliness. Having an hour or two focusing on a creative outlet is well known to be beneficial in reducing stress, and learning new songs and techniques gives the brain a good workout too.

The music itself can be uplifting too, the chords and soaring notes reminding us of life’s ups and downs, according to musical theorist David Teie. Beautiful choral music can bring us out of everyday problems and help us to feel the joy of being alive.
“We all had such a good laugh,” Party Granny told me. “We weren’t even good singers. It was all about cheering ourselves up. Showing everyone that whatever happened, bombs or death of a loved one overseas, we’d always be there, singing.”

And perhaps that is the unscientific part: that feeling that we are part of something that is bigger than ourselves. Something big enough to help us through our own wars and heartbreaks.

Women’s perceived role in society took a giant—if temporary—leap up in Second World War Britain, as played out by those brave and tenacious women in The Chilbury Ladies’ Choir. At its peak in 1943, working women exceeding seven million, filling the gaps left by the men, many with more than one job, or volunteering in addition to their main work.

At first, they were given unskilled jobs in factories and as farm laborers, but as the war progressed, women were trained to become engineers, skilled workers, and managers. Young women were taking the spaces left by men in universities, studying sciences, medicine, and law, including Margaret Thatcher who studied chemistry at Oxford during the war. Running fire stations, driving ambulances, and chopping down trees for the forestry commission, they proved that they could do it, and—more than that—they proved that they had the brains, the strength, and the resourcefulness to do it on their own.

Some groups of women quietly fought for equal pay during the war, a task that had to be carried out carefully so as not to be seen as unpatriotic; everyone’s focus should be on the war rather than pay, after all. Female factory workers in the Rolls Royce Hillington plant in Glasgow went on strike in 1943 and gained some pay concessions; skilled female workers would be paid the same amount as semi-skilled men. In the same year, the women ferry pilots flying for the Air Transport Auxiliary finally achieved equal pay. This was the first time in history that women had been paid the same amount for the same work. It set a new standard; the women had proved that it could be done.

(Ironically, despite pressure from his advisors, Hitler didn’t allow women to work in bomb or munition factories, feeling that their rightful place was in the home. He did, however, use captured women from occupied countries as slave labor working in German factories, and many sabotaged their work to aid the Allies.)

At the end of the war, women were encouraged to give up their jobs and return to the home. In many professions, such as banking and in the government sector, women had to give up work when they got married, known as the marriage bar, although already this had begun to be controversial as it was not implemented in low-pay unskilled jobs, which deterred women from seeking higher education. Crucially, pay for women went back to being significantly lower; in factories, unskilled women were paid 53 per cent that of men.

However, it was their energy and tenacity that lay the groundwork for the push for equality in the 1960s. How can you argue that women are not worthy of equality when they have already proved that they have the minds and abilities to do be just as productive as men? We have the Second World Women—those wonderful spirits of The Chilbury Ladies’ Choir—to thank for showing everyone how it can be done.

My grandmother—the one we called Party Granny—had a favorite cocktail: the Pink Gin, which comprised a good measure of gin with a few drops of pink Angostura bitters. It was especially popular in the upper and upper-middle classes (to which my grandmother aspired) during the war, when tonic water was hard to come by.

Traditionally, it’s a Naval concoction that makes the consumption of Angostura bitters—used for seasickness—more convivial, and I love the picture of a dozen uniformed officers and their wives sipping away inside a stately naval function room.

My grandfather was a Naval Commander, and Party Granny always claimed that her love for the Pink Gin was due to support for his role, rather than its alcoholic content. “In any case,” she’d say with a smirk. “It looks rather fancy, doesn’t it!”

It's virtually straight gin with a few drops of Angostura bitters, so completely lethal; no wonder Party Granny’s war stories became increasingly scandalous as the party wore on!

The Chilbury Ladies' Choir

Prim, the magical choir and music teacher in The Chilbury Ladies’ Choir, has caused quite a stir with her great black cloak and frizz of white hair, her otherworldliness, and her spirituality. I am often asked if she was based on someone, and what is the key to that student-teacher magic.

As a teenager, I had a very inspiring music teacher, the formidable Miss Newing, and Prim is very loosely based on her. The irony is that for such a magnificent and imposing woman, she was small and rather slight, probably around five foot tall. Her soft white hair was always meticulously curled in the old-fashioned way, and she’d wear traditional tweed suits in bright colors: turquoise, cerise, and blue, not unlike the queen. Her voice had a piercing quality, although it was her intonation that was especially transfixing, speaking about music practice as if it were the single most important thing happening on the planet earth that decade. As young teenagers, we’d hide our smiles as she pronounced the word piano in the Italian way: Pee-ahh-no.

She had that sense of magic about her, and if there was any drama in my life—which, as a 14-year-old girl was practically always—as soon as I walked into her music room, it wouldn’t matter; we had music and ourselves, and that was the most important thing.

Sometimes that’s all it takes: someone having faith in you, taking you away from all the small annoyances of every day, showing you the bigger picture. It was a very special time; she taught me that, whatever is happening, it often helps to take a small step back and let music carry you away.

The Chilbury Ladies' Choir

Jennifer Ryan

Throughout the Second World War, Mary Ellis ferried Spitfires and other military planes from the factories where they were made to the RAF bases that needed them, one of 169 women who pushed their way in to do a man’s job—eventually for a man’s pay.

At 100 years old, she still had the sprightly yet clipped manner of a woman who had survived and thrived in the man’s world of aviation. One of the last World War Two pilots still alive, I was lucky to have lunch with her near her home on the Isle of Wight in the south of England.

Armed with questions and preparing myself to meet a frail centenarian, little did I expect that she would bark a few questions at me, and then proceed at last to tell me things I’d never known about the women who took on the dangerous role of delivering planes for the war.

Bad weather, friendly fire, barrage balloons, derelict planes, and coming face to face with a Nazi bomber were among the many dangers these women faced in their day-to-day duties. Flying without navigation equipment or radio support, getting lost or trapped above thick cloud cover became a life-or-death situation. Every morning they were handed their orders: around three to six ferrying jobs for each day, sometimes short hops and others from the very south of the country to the very top of Scotland.

“It wasn’t for the faint hearted,” Mary said when I asked what kind of girls took up the job. “The flying was hard work, but then you had to deal with the prejudices too. No one thought we women could do it, and we had to work twice as hard as the men, and we couldn’t get away with accidents or mishaps.”

By the end of the war, women had demonstrated their aptitude for levelheadedness, with fewer broken planes, more flights per person, and less deaths than the male ferry pilots. On top of these feats, the women quietly pressed for equal pay for equal work, and were awarded it in 1942, the very first women ever to break that threshold.

Thank you to Mary Ellis and the other fearless women WW2 pilots for bravely bolstering air control and for steadfastly furthering the equality for women.

Q: What do you do if sweets and candies are rationed and you haven't seen an ice cream in years?

A: Find an enormous carrot, peel it, push in onto a stick, and hand it your kids for a special treat.

Sugar was one of the first things rationed in WW2 Britain, closely followed by butter, jam, cakes, cookies, and all things sweet, leaving it difficult to celebrate special dates. Millions of children grew up never having even tasted chocolate; an aunt who was only eight at the end of the war told me that the first time she had ice cream was on a trip to Ireland in 1948. "I couldn't believe it just melted in my mouth!" she exclaimed.

Ingenuity became tantamount: how could the population keep spirits up? There was a fear if people felt that they were doing without, this loss of appetite for war would lead directly to Britain's surrender. And so everyone put their collective thinking hats on and came up with some delicious ways to uphold food traditions during the worst of the shortages.

Carrot Lollies were just the start. Carrot Fudge was very popular, using the sweetness of carrots to make up for the lack of sugar, and a recipe for Mock Marzipan used just a small amount of sugar mixed into flour with almond essence. These were cut into cubes and placed in chocolate boxes to be offered around during celebrations, such as Easter.

Many people even felt that rationing brought them closer together. "We all had to do whatever we could," my aunt told me. "We all helped with the growing of vegetables, and we all had to cook as imaginatively as we dared. My extended family--aunties and uncles--would save their sweet rations for me and my little sister. It gave them a sense of pride and purpose." Then she grinned, "And of course it made us all appreciate everything a lot more."