The Diary of a Provincial Lady

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I read a Goodread friend’s review of this book, and it sounded quite good, and so I put it on my TBR list and I read it today and I liked it quite a bit. 😊

This book was very much based on the real life of its author. She had the right credentials for writing this story. As a teenager she was a debutante, then she married a colonel and had two children. She was also made president of her local Women’s Institute, and held this position for life. (This organisation is the ultimate custodian of country life in the UK.) On top of this she obviously had a great understanding of people, and a wonderfully dry sense of humour. So, in summary, a fitting read for the #1930Club, best consumed in small doses to avoid any risk of fatigue. It’s the sort of book you can dip in and out of every now and again when the mood takes you without having to worry about the intricacies of narrative plot. Curious and rather depressing, to see how frequently the pursuit of Good Works leads to apparently unavoidable duplicity. The diarist is a woman I like. Why? She is not snobby or officious. She is a woman simply trying to do her best. She poses questions to herself. She is self-critical. She sums up both her own and others’ actions with honesty, humility and humor. Mistakes occur, they are bound to occur, but we all make them and life does go on! I like her attitude. She is neither nonchalant nor overly anxious. The heirs of Jane Austen/Rachel R. Mather. (Peter Lang, 1996) ISBN 0-8204-2624-5 (Treats E M Delafield, EF Benson and Angela Thirkell)

The household was a joy to watch. There was a taciturn husband, usually to be found behind a newspaper. There was a son away at school, and a daughter being educated at home by a French governess, who was sometimes highly capable and sometimes terribly sensitive. There was a cook who had to be carefully managed, and there was usually a parlour maid, though good parlour maids were dreadfully difficult to find and even harder to keep. It's not easy being a Provincial Lady in Devonshire in the 1920s, juggling a grumpy husband, mischievous children and a host of domestic dilemmas - from rice mould to a petulant cook. But this Provincial Lady will not be defeated; not by wayward flower bulbs, not by unexpected houseguests, not even by the Blitz. She will continue to preside over the W.I., endure rain-drenched family picnics and succeed as a published author, all the while tending to her strawberries. In 1961, Delafield's daughter, Rosamund Dashwood, published Provincial Daughter, a semi-autobiographical account of her own experiences with domestic life in the 1950s.

The book is presented as a series of diary entries, capturing the Provincial Lady’s unfiltered thoughts and observations as she goes about her business – mostly domestic or community-based in nature as she attempts to oversee the running of the house. In spite of our protagonist’s best efforts, nothing seems to run quite as smoothly as she would like it to, painting a picture of a somewhat frazzled woman trying to hold everything together but frequently falling a little short of the mark. The Provincial Lady has a nice house, a nice husband (usually asleep behind The Times), and nice children. In fact, maintaining Niceness is the Provincial Lady’s goal in life—her raison d'être. She never raises her voice, rarely ventures outside Devon (why would she?), only occasionally allows herself to become vexed by the ongoing servant problem, and would be truly appalled by the confessional mode that has gripped the late 20th century. The Provincial Lady, after all, is part of what made Britain great." You see she was so popular, I read so much praise for her wit and her charm, that I became the bookish equivilent of the shy child, who was so often tongue-tied and could never quite keep up with the leading lights. Cook says she hopes I enjoyed my holiday, and it is very quiet in the country. I leave the kitchen before she has time to say more, but am only too well aware that this is not the last of it.Diary of a Provincial Lady is a book whose time has come and gone. It is very cleverly done and maintains its tone skillfully throughout—hence the high rating—but I can’t enjoy it anymore the way I did when I first read it forty years ago. Gay Life (1933) - set in the Côte d'Azur, Hilary and Angie Moon have to live on their wits and her beauty. The Diary of a Provincial Lady is a charming, wry, satirical glimpse into the world of the upper-middle class in Devonshire, England in the late 1920s/early 1930s. As Book Two opens, The Provincial Lady is ready to spread her wings. This book is entitled, “The Provincial Lady Goes Further”. She’s had a book published, has a literary agent, and rents a flat in London, where she is introduced to modern ideas of feminism and self-expression. She’s horrified at all suggestions by her new acquaintances that she may one day ditch her husband Robert and her ‘dull’ life in the country. I was horrified in turn at a detail that would never be written today: her little girl is handed over to the guard in a train on her way to school, and asks if she can sit in the guard’s van with him – off they go, hand in hand! Can you imagine, today? But there is much more here than humour. A certain generation, a certain class, and a way of life that would very soon be gone, is captured beautifully. It is dated, especially in its attitude to money and to domestic staff, but I accepted that it came from a different ages, and there were more than enough good things for me to let go of that.

Cannot many of our moral lapses from Truth be frequently charged upon the tactless persistence of others? Book Three is called, “The Provincial Lady in America”, in which she has been invited to undertake a literary tour, hopping into Canada as well. This was indeed very funny from a British point of view – I wonder how Americans and Canadians respond to it! I found her homecoming, at the end of this book, quite moving, although beautifully underplayed, as is all emotion here, the exaggerations being confined to the ridiculousness of social situations, and, in Book Four, at least two of the characters. Shall she, says Lady B., ring for my car? Refrain from replying that no amount of ringing will bring my car to the door all by itself, and say instead that I walked. Lady B. exclaims that this is Impossible, and that I am Too Marvellous, Altogether. Take my leave before she can add that I am such a Perfect Countrywoman, which I feel is coming next. The Provincial Lady Goes Further (1932) - continuation, beginning with astonishment at receiving a large royalty cheque (from Provincial Lady). Dedicated to Cass Canfield. [5] Otherwise dear Rose entirely unchanged and offers to put me up in her West-End flat as often as I like to come to London. Accept gratefully. (N.B. How very different to old school-friend Cissie Crabbe, with bed-sitting-room and gas-ring in Norwich! But should not like to think myself in any way a snob.)January 22nd - Robert startles me at breakfast by asking if my cold - which he has hitherto ignored - is better. I reply that it has gone. Then why, he asks, do I look like that? Feel that life is wholly unendurable, and decide madly to get a new hat' So there we were: a dying old lady, an ardent American feminist and a scruffy Putney journalist, with nothing in common on the surface, yet all identifying totally with EM Delafield's gentle, disaster-prone, yet curiously dry-witted heroine. Query: Does motherhood lead to cynicism? This contrary to every convention of art, literature, or morality, but cannot altogether escape conviction that answer may be in the affirmative.)"

My first reaction to this book was that it is a direct precursor to Bridget Jones Diary. The dialogue, diary entries, move along at a rapid pace combining wit with a sharp eye on the social mores of the time. Where it differs is in the writer’s self-confidence, the sense you get that she knows that she is has independent identity even as she attempts to meet the expectations of the social world determined by her husband’s position as agent to the local landowner and his wife Lady Boxe who queens it over the town.The Diary of a Provincial Lady is a brilliantly observed comic novel, as funny and fresh today as when it was first written. Now that I have met the her I am inclined to say that the dove-grey Persephone garb suits her best. And that the I found her such wonderful company that I quite forgot my shyness.