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Scenes of Childhood
In the course of her brilliant career Sylvia Townsend Warner wrote superbly in many and diverse forms but never penned a memoir, properly speaking. However, from the 1930s to the 1970s she did contribute a series of short reminiscences to the "New Yorker." "Scenes of Childhood" collects and orders those reminiscences, thus forming a volume that reads as a joyous, wry and moving testament to the experience of being alive. The collection evokes a recognisably English world of nannies, butlers, pet podles, public schools, 'good works' and country churches, but the resonances of these stories are universal - funny and touching by turns.
177 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1981
About the author
Sylvia Townsend Warner
87 books458 followersSylvia Townsend Warner was born at Harrow on the Hill, the only child of George Townsend Warner and his wife Eleanora (Nora) Hudleston. Her father was a house-master at Harrow School and was, for many years, associated with the prestigious Harrow History Prize which was renamed the Townsend Warner History Prize in his honor, after his death in 1916. As a child, Sylvia seemingly enjoyed an idyllic childhood in rural Devonshire, but was strongly affected by her father's death.
She moved to London and worked in a munitions factory at the outbreak of World War I. She was friendly with a number of the "Bright Young Things" of the 1920s. Her first major success was the novel Lolly Willowes. In 1923 Warner met T. F. Powys whose writing influenced her own and whose work she in turn encouraged. It was at T.F. Powys' house in 1930 that Warner first met Valentine Ackland, a young poet. The two women fell in love and settled at Frome Vauchurch in Dorset. Alarmed by the growing threat of fascism, they were active in the Communist Party of Great Britain, and visited Spain on behalf of the Red Cross during the Civil War. They lived together from 1930 until Ackland's death in 1969. Warner's political engagement continued for the rest of her life, even after her disillusionment with communism. She died on 1 May 1978.
She moved to London and worked in a munitions factory at the outbreak of World War I. She was friendly with a number of the "Bright Young Things" of the 1920s. Her first major success was the novel Lolly Willowes. In 1923 Warner met T. F. Powys whose writing influenced her own and whose work she in turn encouraged. It was at T.F. Powys' house in 1930 that Warner first met Valentine Ackland, a young poet. The two women fell in love and settled at Frome Vauchurch in Dorset. Alarmed by the growing threat of fascism, they were active in the Communist Party of Great Britain, and visited Spain on behalf of the Red Cross during the Civil War. They lived together from 1930 until Ackland's death in 1969. Warner's political engagement continued for the rest of her life, even after her disillusionment with communism. She died on 1 May 1978.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
March 10, 2022
Sylvia Townsend Warner
Scenes of Childhood
Crystalline autobiographical ‘scenes’.
Deft, bold, and packed with uncompromising characters.
Townsend Warner sets up structures, cultural practices, norms of polite behaviour, scrutinises them for their hypocrisies, and then stands the whole lot on its head.
In Scenes of Childhood, with wonder and magic she recalls childhood holidays in rural Wales, local customs and family peculiarities. The oddities of Edwardian family life are undermined chapter by chapter with a child’s curiosity and the memoirists rear-view vision. The religious fervour of nannies who get their comeuppance when charged by cows. There are the superstitions of haunted houses and furniture that terrify ‘The Poodle’. Or her mother’s insistence on Sylvia developing her vocabulary using the bible, resulting in hilarity as Sylvia scandalises the village by shouting ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery!’ at her meat-thieving dog.
It is Townsend Warner’s technique, that she presents troves of childhood observations but does not overwhelm the reader. Rather than undermining the richness of detail, she presents her experiences as a tapestry, a background against which it is the adult explanations and behaviour that are seen as ridiculous, and not childhood understanding. She brings each story to climax in a brilliantly absurd manner, while keeping a fondness for its personal resonance.
The structure of the memoir is simple; it progresses through loosely chronological sequences through associated persons or scenarios. But through these scenes emerges a fearless child, passionate for logic and observation in a world that seems to counter any means of understanding, and developing a fierce independence of mind and being. By the end, the writer emerges, with her same-sex partner Valentine, overcoming local mistrust to buy fuel from Dorset locals, exploring churches but terrorising vicars, or setting up relief organisations for squabbling Belgian WW1 refugees.
Scenes of Childhood
Crystalline autobiographical ‘scenes’.
Deft, bold, and packed with uncompromising characters.
Townsend Warner sets up structures, cultural practices, norms of polite behaviour, scrutinises them for their hypocrisies, and then stands the whole lot on its head.
In Scenes of Childhood, with wonder and magic she recalls childhood holidays in rural Wales, local customs and family peculiarities. The oddities of Edwardian family life are undermined chapter by chapter with a child’s curiosity and the memoirists rear-view vision. The religious fervour of nannies who get their comeuppance when charged by cows. There are the superstitions of haunted houses and furniture that terrify ‘The Poodle’. Or her mother’s insistence on Sylvia developing her vocabulary using the bible, resulting in hilarity as Sylvia scandalises the village by shouting ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery!’ at her meat-thieving dog.
It is Townsend Warner’s technique, that she presents troves of childhood observations but does not overwhelm the reader. Rather than undermining the richness of detail, she presents her experiences as a tapestry, a background against which it is the adult explanations and behaviour that are seen as ridiculous, and not childhood understanding. She brings each story to climax in a brilliantly absurd manner, while keeping a fondness for its personal resonance.
The structure of the memoir is simple; it progresses through loosely chronological sequences through associated persons or scenarios. But through these scenes emerges a fearless child, passionate for logic and observation in a world that seems to counter any means of understanding, and developing a fierce independence of mind and being. By the end, the writer emerges, with her same-sex partner Valentine, overcoming local mistrust to buy fuel from Dorset locals, exploring churches but terrorising vicars, or setting up relief organisations for squabbling Belgian WW1 refugees.
May 30, 2012
Book shopping is lovely, of course it is, but when time or money is short browsing the library catalogue is an excellent alternative. And that is how I came to type in the name of Sylvia Townsend Warner one day, hoping that the library might have a title or two that I hadn’t come across.
I spotted ‘Scenes of Childhood.’ I knew nothing about the it, but I placed my order anyway.
The book that arrived had been published in 1981, but it held a collection of short, nostalgic pieces, written for the New Yorker between the 1930s and 1950s.
They lie somewhere between fact and fiction. My feeling is that all of the characters and incidents are real, but they have maybe been embellished just a little. In the way that you might slightly exaggerate or streamline a story to convey its fundamental truth to a listener.
The pieces – twenty-eight of them in total – vary from just a few paragraphs recalling a character or event to much longer pieces with a real tale to tell.
I was smitten from the very first – a wonderful childhood holiday escapade. ‘Wild Wales’ the title said, and it was right. A story so vivid, so well told, so memorable, that it just had to be true.
As I read on a picture began to emerge. A picture of a bright and observant girl, who was loved, secure and happy. A girl who grew up to love the world around her.
There are lovely doggy tales: a poodle’s response to a supposedly haunted house, and a chow fiercely guarding a church from its own vicar.
If I had to pick a favourite it might be the family scene painted in ‘Fried Eggs are Mediterranean.’
“When my father came back with a Bible, he inquired with controlled curiosity, ‘Nora, what are we going to try the fifty-first Psalm for?’
‘Boiling the next lot of eggs by. I remembered last night when I was thinking about it, that I had read in some old miscellany book or other that in the days before watches when people had only those worthless hourglasses to depend on, they used a psalm for boiling eggs – but I couldn’t remember which. Now I’ve remembered. It was the fifty-first, for I thought at the time, what a gloomy proceeding.
My father handed over the Bible, put the eggs in, and said ‘Go.’ My mother replied with, ‘Have mercy on me , O God according to Thy loving kindness …’ She was overhauling the seventh verse when there came a knock at the back door. Saying in a rapid parenthesis, ‘They’re all we have left, my mother went reading and after another knock the postman opened the door. Without comment he put down some parcels and went away, shutting the door unobtrusively. The eggs were the best we’s achieved, but even so they were a trifle overcooked.”
Or it might be the brilliantly observed account of ‘Stanley Sherwood’, an impeccable butler with a sinister smile, who would later reappear as a fireman.
“My mother’s butler was named Stanley Sherwood. He was a slender, sallow man. His expression was at once ravenous and demure; he had a profile as accurate as though it had been snipped out of a piece of paper; his tread was noiseless; he had a tendency to fold his hands. His memory was as accurate as his profile, he was punctual to the minute, he never forgot a duty or a commission; his closed were always brushed, his demeanour was always correct. he was like some baleful drug, which, once you have imbibed it, you cannot do without. My father referred to him as Ignatius Loyola.”
The observation, the wit, the charm are pitch perfect. Times and places are evoked beautifully.
One or two stories don’t quite hit the mark, but the majority do more than make up for that, with fine writing and storytelling that is utterly compelling.
The book has to go back to the library, but I shall remember it fondly, and hope that it isn’t too long before somebody else summons it from the fiction reserve.
And before it goes I shall finish by seconding Hilary Spurling’s cover quote:
“All in all, one can’t be too thankful that Miss Townsend Warner has lived to discover the alchemist’s secret of transmuting the past and the possible, and even the impossible now and again, into pure gold.”
I spotted ‘Scenes of Childhood.’ I knew nothing about the it, but I placed my order anyway.
The book that arrived had been published in 1981, but it held a collection of short, nostalgic pieces, written for the New Yorker between the 1930s and 1950s.
They lie somewhere between fact and fiction. My feeling is that all of the characters and incidents are real, but they have maybe been embellished just a little. In the way that you might slightly exaggerate or streamline a story to convey its fundamental truth to a listener.
The pieces – twenty-eight of them in total – vary from just a few paragraphs recalling a character or event to much longer pieces with a real tale to tell.
I was smitten from the very first – a wonderful childhood holiday escapade. ‘Wild Wales’ the title said, and it was right. A story so vivid, so well told, so memorable, that it just had to be true.
As I read on a picture began to emerge. A picture of a bright and observant girl, who was loved, secure and happy. A girl who grew up to love the world around her.
There are lovely doggy tales: a poodle’s response to a supposedly haunted house, and a chow fiercely guarding a church from its own vicar.
If I had to pick a favourite it might be the family scene painted in ‘Fried Eggs are Mediterranean.’
“When my father came back with a Bible, he inquired with controlled curiosity, ‘Nora, what are we going to try the fifty-first Psalm for?’
‘Boiling the next lot of eggs by. I remembered last night when I was thinking about it, that I had read in some old miscellany book or other that in the days before watches when people had only those worthless hourglasses to depend on, they used a psalm for boiling eggs – but I couldn’t remember which. Now I’ve remembered. It was the fifty-first, for I thought at the time, what a gloomy proceeding.
My father handed over the Bible, put the eggs in, and said ‘Go.’ My mother replied with, ‘Have mercy on me , O God according to Thy loving kindness …’ She was overhauling the seventh verse when there came a knock at the back door. Saying in a rapid parenthesis, ‘They’re all we have left, my mother went reading and after another knock the postman opened the door. Without comment he put down some parcels and went away, shutting the door unobtrusively. The eggs were the best we’s achieved, but even so they were a trifle overcooked.”
Or it might be the brilliantly observed account of ‘Stanley Sherwood’, an impeccable butler with a sinister smile, who would later reappear as a fireman.
“My mother’s butler was named Stanley Sherwood. He was a slender, sallow man. His expression was at once ravenous and demure; he had a profile as accurate as though it had been snipped out of a piece of paper; his tread was noiseless; he had a tendency to fold his hands. His memory was as accurate as his profile, he was punctual to the minute, he never forgot a duty or a commission; his closed were always brushed, his demeanour was always correct. he was like some baleful drug, which, once you have imbibed it, you cannot do without. My father referred to him as Ignatius Loyola.”
The observation, the wit, the charm are pitch perfect. Times and places are evoked beautifully.
One or two stories don’t quite hit the mark, but the majority do more than make up for that, with fine writing and storytelling that is utterly compelling.
The book has to go back to the library, but I shall remember it fondly, and hope that it isn’t too long before somebody else summons it from the fiction reserve.
And before it goes I shall finish by seconding Hilary Spurling’s cover quote:
“All in all, one can’t be too thankful that Miss Townsend Warner has lived to discover the alchemist’s secret of transmuting the past and the possible, and even the impossible now and again, into pure gold.”
March 31, 2019
These pieces are clearly magazine articles and mostly do not rise above that genre except in flashes. Nevertheless they are well written and an interesting record of a time and place. Some sections are beautiful. The humour is occasionally trying and the perspective from a particular class and race is sometimes disconcerting.
Read
September 14, 2021As has been well-established, I would probably die for Sylvia Townsend Warner. This delightful book of reminiscences has only solidified this position and my devotion to her. When was the last time you read something that made you cry with laughter? You can't remember? Then dive into this book, post-haste!
August 25, 2021
While several of these short stories haven’t stood the test of time, the majority have and remain amusing and endearing. Charming bedtime reading.
March 16, 2017
Scenes of Childhood and other stories – as the title suggests draws heavily upon STW’s own life, especially that of her childhood. Throughout this wonderful collection – Sylvia Townsend Warner appears as herself, as do other members of her family. It is hard to remember sometimes that this a collection of stories – however autobiographical, it often feels more like a collection of memoirs. Therefore, I suppose we must assume that STW been a little creative here and there, bringing her own great gift of storytelling to the entertaining stories within her own family. Although STW never wrote an autobiography, these pieces which were written at periods throughout her life – compiled into this volume after her death – make for a fabulous alternative.
Scenes of Childhood contain a large number of pieces and it would be impossible I think to talk about each of them, many are very short. In its entirety, the collection leaves the reader with a wonderful sense of the woman behind the stories and the family she came from.
Full review: https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2017/...
Scenes of Childhood contain a large number of pieces and it would be impossible I think to talk about each of them, many are very short. In its entirety, the collection leaves the reader with a wonderful sense of the woman behind the stories and the family she came from.
Full review: https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2017/...
March 26, 2016
I've heard of Sylvia Townsend Warner for years.. Found this book at a recycling book bin. The first few paragraphs captivated me and I read the beginning of the book with great pleasure. She's a great writer.
I love her story about the mouse who gnawed at the bed frame leg.. and mother's attempts to get rid of the mouse.. None of which worked.. I found myself laughing and snickering at Sylvia Townsend Warner's witty ways.
The last few stories did not captivate me as the first stories did.
I love her story about the mouse who gnawed at the bed frame leg.. and mother's attempts to get rid of the mouse.. None of which worked.. I found myself laughing and snickering at Sylvia Townsend Warner's witty ways.
The last few stories did not captivate me as the first stories did.
May 16, 2014
Just a month ago I read "Lolly Willowes". It was the first book I read by Sylvia Townsend Warner. I loved Lolly and I immediately wanted to read more of her works. "Scenes from Childhood" is nonfiction. It is a collection of short personal stories she had published in "The New Yorker" magazine from the 1930s through to the 1970s. Each story is a memory of some small event in her life. As entertaining as each little reminiscence is, it is the writing that makes this book so readable. Sylvia Townsend Warner writes like an artist thinks.
November 18, 2009
A rare thing -- a book that's funny without being predictable or twee.
November 24, 2020
A British woman of the leisure classes writes vignettes of her young years. It is much better than it sounds.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews