I enjoy diaries and histories of the WWII era, but I found this to be a difficult read. At times the author used excruciating detail and at others seemed to lightly gloss over any details at all. I found out difficult to follow and, unfortunately, even more difficult to maintain my interest.

Having read several of Margery Allingham’s detective novels, I was intrigued to come across The Oaken Heart, an account of life in her small English village during the Second World War. Originally published in 1941, it was apparently based on letters written to some American friends and expanded into a book at the suggestion of her publisher. It’s interesting to think that she was writing this while the war was still taking place and when nobody knew how much longer it would last or what the outcome would be.

Allingham’s village was Tolleshunt D’Arcy in Essex, but she refers to it in the book as ‘Auburn’ after a line from the poem The Deserted Village by Oliver Goldsmith. She is obviously very proud of Auburn and the way the people who live there work together to cope with whatever the war throws at them; it’s true that all towns and villages have their own unique characteristics, but I think it’s also true that the wartime experiences of the residents of Auburn will have been similar to the experiences of people in other parts of Britain.

Like many other villages, Auburn, in 1938 when the book opens, is still suffering from the effects of the previous war which ended just twenty years earlier. There’s a sense that Allingham and her friends are putting all their faith in Neville Chamberlain, not really believing or wanting to believe that war could possibly happen again. Of course, it does happen again – after a year of preparations, gas mask distributions and discussions of who should take in how many evacuees. The subject of evacuees is an important one to the people of Auburn; at first they are excited at the thought of groups of little schoolchildren from London arriving in the village (since the First World War there has been a shortage of young people in Auburn), but the reality is very different – hundreds of young mothers and babies! Allingham’s descriptions of the newcomers, the culture differences and how the villagers dealt with all of this are quite funny to read about.

I have never read anything about Margery Allingham as a person before, so I don’t know what she was supposed to be like or what impression the people who knew her had of her, but based on her own words in The Oaken Heart, she seems very likeable and down-to-earth. She makes a few references to her writing career now and then (she was working on Traitor’s Purse at the time), but there is never any sense of self-importance or superiority over anyone else in the village. Her writing style is warm, conversational and, as you would expect, very readable.

This is a wonderful book, which I would recommend to anyone who enjoys reading about life during the war. The fact that it is a first-hand account written in 1941 rather than a memoir written years later gives it another layer of interest. As we reach the final page, there is still no end to the war in sight and nobody has any idea if or when it’s all going to stop. I was sorry that the book ended when it did, as I would have liked to have continued reading about the people of Auburn and to find out how they fared later in the war.

I don't know if I liked it or not. At time a description of people during wartime, at time personal opinions.
It is a bit confused and not easy to read.
I got it as I liked the writer but was a bit disappointed.
Many thanks to Ipso Books and Netgalley

Mystery author Margery Allingham wrote this as a series of letters to her American publisher just before and during the early part of World War II.

She tells us that it wasn't written as propaganda, but clearly her intent was to have it published in America and hopefully to influence the American people to support the British. There's nothing wrong with this. It was a desperate situation and America's isolationist policy prevented them from giving the British the level of support they needed. So good on her for making the effort.

Allingham gives us a portrait of a small village near the east coast of England confronting a war and all the terrors that it may bring. The threat of invasion and heavy bombing was a very real possibility, forcing Allingham and her neighbors to make decisions about what they would do if the worst happened. Her soul searching is painful to read about. She honestly confronts herself and wonders how she would react if the Germans actually invaded and arrived in her village. Would she fight, run away or hide? In the end she decides to fight but is honest enough to admit that until it really happened, she couldn't be sure if her courage would fail her or not.

Although the village of Auburn (a code name) was quite small, they were anxious to do their bit, preparing for the arrival of ninety child evacuees from the cities. The populace rose to the occasion and plenty of billets were found. As it turned out, when the evacuees arrived, there were 300+ women and small children on the buses, many of the women expectant mothers. How the people of Auburn dealt with the situation and the descriptions of the newcomers and their problems makes for interesting and often funny reading.

When reading this, it's important to remember that Margery Allingham was a staunch Tory countrywoman of the old type. God and country, self reliance, hard work, emotional reticence, self control and knowing one's place were part of her DNA. Some of the things she thought perfectly natural, such as first generation successful people shouldn't move up the class ladder, seem ridiculous to modern minds. She believed it was the second generation in the family, after they had been educated at the right sort of English public school (which would instill in them the proper pride and values fitting them for a higher status) who should move up. She's not being mean or bigoted, she was simply a woman of her time and class. There were a few moments while reading this that I envisioned her as a sort of rural Hyacinth Bucket (It's pronounced Bouquet!)

I thoroughly enjoyed this and recommend to anyone interested in the British home front during World War II.

Being a huge fan of the author's popular Campion mysteries I was excited to read this book. I knew it was about the village where she lived most of her life and about how it dealt with WWII. What I got was something much more.

First the book is a fantastic look at village life and what makes the rural villages of England so special. The extraordinary situation the village is put in, only highlights the structure, connections, and trust that was already there.

Second, the book has a real immediacy of how people felt and reacted and what they did during the early years of the War (the book was published in 1941). From so many decades on, our view of this period is colored by history books, news reports, novels, and films.While often they give true accounts they all lack the moving immediacy of The Oaken Heart, when the authors tells us the villagers thought factories had been built elsewhere because their area was unsuitable. Or how they realized there were not enough guns for the soldiers when a young man billeted in the area was bemoaning that they had no Tommy guns. It's details like this that give us the picture.

It's books like this that move us and serve as the best basis for future histories.

Poorly written, simply put the book has no flow. I found it unreadable.

Written in diary form, this auto-biographical novel describes the build up and beginning of the the Second World War from the viewpoint of a country dwelling woman. It is fascinating to read her inner thoughts and feelings about the countries preparation for war, and the local plans that were put in place in her village to defeat the Nazis. A true insight into the feelings of the populace as the country stood on the edge waiting for the declaration of war, and then the first two years of the war. The descriptions of the blitz and how the villagers saw London when visiting, are particularly poignant, as are the evacuees and the issue of gas masks. The fact that people were frightened to speak on the trains for fear of giving away information to the ever listening enemy! It is heartening to read about the bravery of the ordinary people, all determined to do their bit to protect their small corner of the country. Written with a view to encouraging America to support Britain, I can see how effective this would have been. A fascinating read for anyone interested in this period.

The Oaken Heart was written by a crime novelist to her publisher, describing life in her English village as World War II began. Many interesting tidbits, including the British view of the French. It was their “convinced opinion that the Frenchies were always prepared to fight on any provocation, it being in their nature.”
The British were quick with contingencies. Gas masks were delivered before the war spread to England. Cards on everyone listed how many rooms in their homes, how many occupants, and how many evacuees they could accommodate. The villagers were surprised to discover the evacuees’ children were not toilet trained; what was wrong with city girls?
Many folk felt they had done their bit in the last war and shouldn’t be called upon to do much this time. The WWI vets were angry, believing they’d seen to Europe’s safety and now they were fighting again? Many believed Hitler was all talk, only bluffing and would back down.
The dogfights taking place high overhead in the blue sky were beautiful, with the planes’ white trails like bridal veils.
Despite the interesting nuggets, this was a hard book to read. It rambles. The author suddenly goes off on a tangent, leaving the reader wondering what’s going on. Some things are touched on so vaguely, perhaps due to wartime censoring. I skimmed through a lot.

I am a fan of stories of ordinary people and their war time experiences. I was intrigued by Allingham's take on things. I've only ever read Tiger in the Smoke, and that was years ago, so I can't really say that her style stuck in my head, but she's a writer I've been meaning to get re-acquainted with and this seemed a good place to start. It's an unusual book. Unlike, say 'Few Eggs and No Oranges' by Vere Hodgson, it seems clearly written for a large reading audience, and was finished by mid 1941, so you sense a reticence in the writing that makes it less candid, and for me, less interesting. It feels like Allingham is writing with a strong idea of keeping up morale, which makes sense, but I also found a little frustrating. I found her mannerisms rather tricky at times, although perfectly indicative of the time she lived in. It took me a few paragraphs to realise when she was referring to an outbreak of head lice in the evacuees for example, her wording was so odd. I did struggle with picturing her relationship to all the people she writes about too. I wanted to know more about who they were and generally how the village worked and it was rather like a detective story, picking things out and putting them together as you went along. I found myself, about half way through, getting more into the rhythm of the book and genuinely enjoying it, only to find that it then finished rather abruptly. I felt somewhat cheated, and would dearly have loved to have continued reading her thoughts to the end of hostilities and seeing where her rather grandiose theories about her fellow villagers and English people in general would have ended up. I found it interesting, intriguing but on the whole somewhat frustrating.

I’m a huge fan of Margery Allingham and would never have believed she could write a book which is almost unreadable. Sadly, this is the case with The Oaken Heart. It's very hard going. The idea of the book is to explain, supposedly to American friends, how an English village coped with the onset of war. It’s autobiographical and, we must suppose, accurate. Her Essex village is here called Auburn; a neighbouring one is Pontisbright, a name fans will recognise. Allingham understood country ways and country people and aims to show the sturdy independence of the villagers and their attitudes to politicians, war in general, and an invasion of Londoners. This is interesting from a social point of view and must have helped researchers in the past. The problem is that it’s one long ramble. It would have been a much better book tidied up, cut and reorganised, perhaps written as a diary. I’d read half the book when I realised it was just depressing me and abandoned it. What a disappointment.

The Oaken Heart
by Margery Allingham
first published 1941

Reviewed by Kay Stephen

Margery Allingham, was already a famous author of classic British detective novels when she wrote this non-fictional, semi-autobiographical account of life her in an English village immediately preceding and during the early part of World War II. The original manuscript for this book started out as a series of letters she wrote to some American friends detailing her increasing involvement in village life during preparation for, and the experience of, war. These activities included the organization and billeting of evacuees, service as a First Aid Commandant, local air raid precautions and various other activities that became necessary as her country, England, got further involved in surviving the hardships caused by being at war.

The reader is treated to the ebb and flow of village life as the seasons turn, the crops are harvested and life is celebrated. The bravery and steadfastness of the British citizen is a reoccurring theme as there is never any doubt that they shall prevail against the enemy no matter how many bombs are dropped, how many men are lost, how much food is rationed or how many hardships must be endured.

One of the true pleasures of reading this publication is in hearing the opinions of an educated and social villager about the experiences and thoughts of the common person as another war became inevitable, and was eventually declared, in Britain. Allingham describes the faith which the population put into Prime minister Chamberlain during the pre-war years and how their faith was so completely shattered when he continued to talk of peace with Germany and made little, or no, attempt to train people, manufacture the required munitions or engage in the myriad of other activities that are so necessary in wartime. For example Allingham's describes in detail the debacle of sending thousands of child refugees from London to the countryside months before any fighting was experienced on the island. The reader is informed of the sheer hard work and planning that the volunteers performed, both those who helped to place the children, as well as those who accepted them into their homes. The fact that most refugees had returned home long before the air raids even started in London is just one example of inept planning by Chamberlain's government. The joy and relief upon the appointment of Prime minister Winston Churchill and the sensational inspiration his speeches brought to those gathered around their radios is palatable as described by Allingham.

Initially, Allingham's writing in The Oaken Heart is somewhat stilted, similar to that found in a formal essay written by one who is comfortable with the syntax of complex sentence structure and who has an vast, if somewhat dated, vocabulary. But as the book progresses the author appears to become more at ease and the writing tends to flow as Allingham hits her stride.

A vast array of characters are described throughout this war time tale. The village of Auburn is populated with all the classic characters the reader has come to expect in the English village -- elderly spinster sisters, church ladies, shop keepers, publicans, and a vast array of military types from Air Raid Wardens to Commissioned Officers. Yet the central character in this historical tale is actually the village of Auburn – steadfast and trustworthy.

I recommend this book to anyone interested in the history of WWII, especially as experienced by the British.