Customer Reviews

Love during the second world war - By: Roman Clodia, 04 Aug 2008
Told solelyin letters between the protagonists with the minimum of commentary, this tells the affecting love story of Mirren Barford & Jock Lewes during the second world war. At the start she is just 19 & at Somerville, Oxford & meets Jock at a friend's wedding. The letters chart the beginning of their flirtatious friendship which deepens into passionate love.

In some ways this is a similar trajectory to Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth & the lettersin Letters from a Lost Generation, with some of the same feelings of almost arrogant innocence at the start mellowing into something much harsher as the war progresses. However the morality of the second world war rather than the first intervenesin very different ways, & this is far more an individual story that Brittain's which also charts the loss of an entire generation.

Despite much having been madein the publisher's blurb about Jock's rolein the formation of the SAS, there is barely a mention of the warin his letters which are internalised, often religious & idealisticin lots of ways. But his feelings for Mirren are heartfelt & sincere, especially at the start where his feelings are far deeper than hers.
Given the plethora of books telling the public face of WW2 this is a fitting personal monument that is set during the war but is,in many ways, not quite of it.