📚 'Rather Dated' April: R.C. Sheriff's 'The Fortnight in September' 📚

Late to the party, here, but this is my favourite book ever - so much so that I dare not recommend it to anyone in case they don’t get it . One of my favourite bits is when they are in the train passing the bottom of their garden and it looks different. So many little observations on “little lives” make this book utterly perfect.

The only questionable part was a fortnight of good weather!!

I'm very late finishing this one but wanted to join the discussion anyway. Like @ChessieFL I also had an ancient interloan copy from the library, acquired in 1976, and looking like it's had a cup of coffee spilled on it, plus various underlining and marginal notes. My local library only seems to stock new books, so it was rather nice to get a book with some history to it.

I enjoyed the novel. I haven't read that much 1930s literature and I now realise that what I have read is mainly by authors from the upper classes - so lots of servants, exotic foreign travel etc. I found it fascinating to read a book about how ordinary people of the period would have lived. I was fascinated by some of the incidental details that @FuzzyCaoraDhubh also picked up - it seems to be completely unremarkable that a man in his 50s would have false teeth, for example! Also that a married couple would have separate bedrooms. I agree with others that Mrs Stevens seemed to live a life of drudgery, which I guess is partly due to the lack of modern technology. I assume that the reason she had to go to the shops everyday was that home refrigeration hadn't been invented yet? At the same time there wasn't any particular suggestion she was unhappy with her lot in life, unlike the male characters who seemed to struggle at times. I suspect her character would have been written differently by a female writer.

I enjoyed the way the author contrasted the aspirations of the older and younger generations. Mr Stevens had hoped for advancement in his firm but was disappointed, whereas Dick seems motivated to pursue his education and become an architect. Mary's holiday romance seemed to echo aspects of her parents' meeting, right down to the theatrical setting. At one point it was implied that she was expecting her beau to propose, but in the end she seems to accept the fact that it was just a holiday romance. Unlike her mother, she did not simply marry the first man who paid her any attention, and as a result there seem to be more possibilities open to her.

I thought the commentary on different types of wealth was interesting. It's clear that the Stevens are not very well off, and Mr Stevens is disappointed that he was unable to secure a promotion that would have enabled him to buy a bigger house. Yet in spite of the lack of material wealth, he has a happy family life and takes pleasure in his garden and the natural world. By contrast, the Montgomerys have a big house, but are unfulfilled in other ways - children, the barren garden etc. People who can appreciate the modest pleasures in life, like a holiday at the seaside, a walk in the country, an occasional glass of port, are rich.

I had to look up what a bloater was!

@StellaOlivetti I even looked it up to see whether he’d worked on the screenplay of 'This Happy Breed'….he didn't, though!

shameless placemaking - I'm about halfway through and absolutely loving this. So glad to have found this group, the 'rather dated' era is my absolute favourite.

@Terpsichore , I too got very strong This Happy Breed vibes. I love that film so much. And I don’t know about anyone else, but I would prefer a holiday like the Stevens’ to the kind most people have now. I don’t want to rush about seeing things, I would be perfectly happy playing cricket and swimming.

Yes, that's it exactly. People are more inclined to go on day trips to tourist attractions rather than stay in the one place as an end in itself. The book reminded me of my childhood holidays. I can see why people are so fond of this book and would enjoy rereading it. The period detail is marvellous.

I’ve finished this now and I really enjoyed it. It’s one of those books where I wanted to savour every word and detail. It reminded me of Elizabeth Jane Howard with the observations and thoughts of all the characters. I loved all the period detail and I can see this being a book I’ll want to reread several times. I felt very sorry for Mrs Hugget at the end. It also really brought home how much holidays have changed - I can’t imagine many families now having a holiday like that, where they go to the same place every year and just spend two weeks on the beach. Holidays now are filled with days out to places rather than just hanging out like the Stevens’s do.

That's cool Chessie. It's been yonks since I've read a real library book, but I always used to love looking at the page with the stamped dates. * *

I like that too, @ChessieFL

I have just started on this. I have got it from the library and my edition is Rather Dated - it was first stamped by the library
on 25 February 1972. Lots of other stamps since. I rather like reading a copy that I know for sure that so many others have read over the last 50 years.

satisfaction

The doling out of the port into measures reminded me of my father, who used to measure out his whiskey using the cap of the bottle. He was rather frugal and used to talk about 'sparing' things. He took pride in stretching it out. I felt it gave Mrs Stevens the same sasatisfaction. There was a sense that she should be happy with her lot, but I think in those days people were happy with what they had and didn't look for more.

I think she just carried on going to the shops because that’s what she had to do every single day at home - she had to buy the provisions to be cooked for their meals, even at Mrs Huggett's. Yes, she enjoyed pottering round the shops, but the expectation was still there; she couldn’t properly relax. And they all took it totally for granted that it was what she’d do, while they pranced off to the beach for their jolly morning.

At the start of the book it was clear that she didn’t like the seaside, she feared the sea and hated the sun - 'it made her unhappy to pretend she was enjoying herself'. But Mr Stevens loved it, as did the rest of the family, so she had to defer to them.

I was glad she at at least had her quiet hour alone with her nice glass of port (can’t help wondering what happened a few years ago when she ‘wasn’t very well' and the doctor prescribed that port as a pick-me-up…did Mr Stevens do any of the cooking then, or make her a cup of tea in the mornings? Can’t really see it myself!)

I didn’t think I’d manage to read it but providentially my library copy finally turned up yesterday after ages on the waiting list. I galloped through it and finished it this evening.

I feel in two minds - I really enjoyed it, and thought Sherriff captured exactly the sense of ritual about going on holiday…maybe not such a big deal nowadays, but DH and I went to the same (lovely) place for several years and I definitely recognised that feeling of wanting everything to be the same, and recognising all your favourite little things. It must have been all the more pleasurable if you worked in a drab office in 1931 and got 2 weeks off work as your only holiday, and had to scrimp and save to afford your flagon of ginger beer and your chalet with a balcony. There was real poetry (and humour) in a lot of the writing.

But, but….I felt so awful for Mrs Stevens, who didn’t really enjoy going to Bognor, and who was told off for dropping her aitches (agree that the 'reely' was telling us her speech was on the common side), and whose dress sense didn’t please her critical husband, and who made the mistake of buying the buns a day early so they were stale. And after all that, she STILL had to go shopping every day while the others swanned off to the beach! And her son marked out her measly bottle of port so she couldn’t ever have a drop more in the evening because no doubt they’d all notice and make fun of her, while Mr Stevens was able to saunter down to the pub every evening…..well, you can see I got a bit indignant on her behalf. Yes, I know times were different, and women were expected to look after their homes and families. But I couldn’t help feeling a pang for her, all the same.

It was interesting, actually, because what was in my head a lot of the time was the film of Noel Coward's 'This Happy Breed', which was very reminiscent in places in the way it showed everyday family life among the upper working classes - Dad, Mum, almost grown-up boy and girl children, even a 'Puss'. And I could easily imagine The Fortnight in September as a film. Sherriff was a very successful screenwriter who worked on a lot of extremely well-known films. I wonder whether there was ever any thought of adapting this…?

I finished a few days ago I did really like it but would be hard pushed to say why exactly. I think the family felt like a real family, they had their own individual joys and disappointments in life and were all able to enjoy a couple of weeks out of the mundane of real life.

Interesting that the mother at the beginning thought to herself that she didnt really enjoy the holiday for herself but instead enjoyed what the others got out of it. Its the same reason I take my DS to softplay etc

Thank you @MotherofPearl ! The photographs are brilliant. Quite like I imagined it. The man in the foreground looks like he has just arrived, having swapped his formal shoes for white canvas ones :)

Yes. That's a reely interesting observation, Stella (sorry 😄). It hadn't occurred to me, but it ties into Mrs Stevens's nature that it could signify her timidity. I suppose I was seeing it as a class marker.

There were so many small details that made me smile; Mr Stevens making sure he put his teeth in before he served his family tea in bed, Mrs Stevens casually throwing a sandwich wrapper out the window, applying olive oil so that skin wouldn't peel after sunburn. I like your point about how the book's pace gathered momentum from the planning of the holiday to the actual holiday and how the ending was foreshadowed by the chilly winds of autumn which were the harbinger of change for the family.

At some stage, Bognor became Bognor Regis?

Two more things: I entirely agree with @IsadoraQuagmire that Bognor in 1931 would be lovely compared to here and now, and yes, the ‘reely’ from Mrs Stevens did grate, although I’m sure I’ve read quite a few books set around this time where it’s used as a device to signify a sort of timid would be gentility. So maybe it would grate less to contemporary readers?

Just finished it. I’ve read it before but remembered surprisingly little. I loved it and didn’t want it to end, but as it’s such as enjoyable read I raced through it. The start was slow, lots of detail about the planning, the packing, the mechanics of the journey, what to do with the canary etc, and then it seemed to gather momentum… the Rhythm reminded me of a holiday, how it seems slow to start then starts to speed up, or even (a bit fancifully) a stream train. It was clear how massive an event the holiday was for this family. I loved Mary’s romance (ultimately disappointing) with Pat, and the pulling away from her family to go out with glitzy Billie felt very true to life. And Dick using the holiday to come to a decision about his hated job that his dad was so proud to get him. The tea party with the nouveau riche Montgomery family made me ache for Mr Stevens, and at the same time be proud of how decent they all were. It felt a bit like the old world clashing with the new. The ending was sad, I felt. There had been a few hints that this sun drenched happiness was coming to a close, as when Mr Stevens worries that the older two children are outgrowing it, but it’s confirmed really at the end when Mrs Hugget reveals that most of her regulars hadn’t come. I don’t know how much the shadow of war was discernible in 1931, or whether the writer was just evoking the end of the summer holiday, but I did feel there wouldn’t be many more fortnights in September for the Stevens.

I loved this book. I read it a few months ago. I really enjoyed the preparations for the holiday which rang very true. (And why don't we still have the option of a porter coming to our home to collect the luggage??) I also liked the pathos of the landlady gradually becoming older and struggling....quite sad but realistic. As we also go to the same place on holiday every year I can relate!

I've just finished it. It was a satisfying read. I enjoyed the narrative from the male perspective. We haven't had that before in our previous books, so it was a change. It was also good that the narrative switched between characters. It was balanced.

Mrs Stevens' "reely" grated on my nerves too. She seemed to come across as rather vulnerable and not as able as the others or was it how they treated her, as ChannelLightVessel suggested. It did come across as condescending.

This is my favourite book. I read it every year starting on the Friday before the first Saturday in September (this is where the book begins)
I look forward to this all year, I'd far rather be with the Stevens in Bognor in 1931 than go on a real holiday in horrible depressing Present Day.