 by Robin Hanbury-Tenison
The indomitable Christian Lamb has done it again. After reviewing her hugely enter¬taining and successful first book, From The Ends Of The Earth: Passionate Plant Collectors Remembered in a Cornish Garden, in these pages three years ago, I said that I did hope that we would be treated to another feast by this octogenarian author. And she has come up trumps.
Anyone who had a relation in the Wrens during the war will find this intimate insight fascinating. Those who actually were Wrens will be unable to put it down. The author, whose own war was full of excitement and romance, has gathered together stories from lots of her contemporaries: snippets which illustrate the discomfort, fortitude and occasionally thrilling moments faced by those brave and loyal girls so many years ago.
The atmosphere of wartime Britain is captured; the shocking snobbery and the true friendships, which transcended class and background, as well as the sheer courage that shines through. Many Wrens were on special duties, doing highly secret things at places such as Bletchley Park. One contemporary she tracked down said that she had been made to remember things for the book that she had spent decades trying to forget.
The author herself comes across as an eminently sensible person with an acute perception of human nature, termpered with a wry wit. She is the perfect Wren to have reminded us and, I hope, some of those who are still around, what it was really like.