A Time of War

Description

A Time of War offers a first-hand looks at the dangers, loves and everyday dramas of a Fleet Air Arm Training centre. Set in the West Country, it give a Wren's- eye view of the WWII - following a group of young women as they enter the services world. Mary Hocking's novel explores the gossip, the parties, and the tedium of wartime - and how the women and their friendships are tested by it.The women found within cabin 8 have been forced together despite their differences. We meet Kerren, an Irish girl who starts her story swept away with the romance of war-time; Beatie, confident and unafraid; Jessie insecure and unsure of her place with the other girls; Robin, immaculate and standoffish and the other, changing inhabitants of cabin 8.As each woman interacts with the war in her own, unique way, we build up a picture of the real life of wartime Britain through the people who lived through it.

Born in in London in 1921, Mary was educated at Haberdashers' Aske's Girls School, Acton. During the Second World War she served in the Women's Royal Naval Service (Wrens) attached to the Fleet Air Arm Meteorology branch and then briefly with the Signal Section in Plymouth. Writing was in her blood. Juggling her work as a local government officer in Middlesex Education Department with writing, at first short stories for magazines and pieces for The Times Educational Supplement, she then had her first book, The Winter City, published in 1961. The book was a success and enabled Mary to relinquish her full time occupation to devote her time to writing. Even so, when she came to her beloved Lewes in 1961, she still took a part-time appointment, as a secretary, with the East Sussex Educational Psychology department. Long before family sagas had become cult viewing, she had embarked upon the 'Fairley Family' trilogy - Good Daughters, Indifferent Heroes, and Welcome Strangers - books which give her readers a faithful, realistic and uncompromising portrayal of ordinary people caught up in extraordinary times, between the years of 1933 and 1946. For many years she was an active member of the 'Monday Lit', a Lewes-based group which brought in current writers and poets to speak about their work. Equally, she was an enthusiastic supporter of Lewes Little Theatre, where she found her role as 'prompter' the most satisfying, and worshipped at the town's St Pancras RC Church.

It reads like a straight slice out of war-time life, written with almost ostentatious quietude, but a lot of skill has gone into it. The atmosphere is vividly recaptured -- Norman Shrapnell Readable, serious and often witty. Miss Hocking has an acute eye for social behaviour The Times