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House of the spirits
Independent on Sunday, The, Jul 4, 2004 by Suzi Feay
What on earth am I doing, driving to Green Knowe on a hot day in June? As we nose round the lanes of Hemingford Grey, looking for the Manor, as it is more properly known, I think of Tolly's very different arrival at this magical house, in Lucy M Boston's classic novel, The Children of Green Knowe. Toseland, a rather forlorn little boy in the best tradition of children's literature, arrives in a winter downpour at the atmospherically named station of Penny Soaky in the Cambridgeshire Fens. The taxi which fetches him soon has to halt because the lane is flooded. "Almost at once they heard the sound of oars, and a lantern came round the corner of the lane rocking on the bows of a rowing boat. A man called out, `Is that Master Toseland?' The driver shouted back, `Is that Mr Boggis?' but Toseland was speechless with relief and delight."
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Toseland - soon to be rechristened Tolly - and the gardener, Boggis, row in through the gates of perhaps the most extraordinary house in children's fiction. A Norman hall, one of the oldest continuously inhabited houses in England, filled with mirrors, paintings and treasures, becomes the setting for exciting adventures involving the natural and supernatural worlds. Any imaginative child who has ever been left to play in a garden alone will instantly recognise the book's charm and power.
When I read The Children of Green Knowe - and its successors, The Chimneys of Green Knowe (1958), The River at Green Knowe (1959), A Stranger at Green Knowe (1961), which won the Carnegie Medal, An Enemy at Green Knowe (1964) and The Stones of Green Knowe (1976) - I had no idea the house at the centre of the spell was real. When I did find out, as an adult, I felt queasy and ambivalent about visiting the place I could already see so clearly in my mind. What if it was a disappointment?
Just before Christmas last year I appeared on BBC Breakfast to talk about The Big Read. The last question from the presenter was: "What should I give my niece for Christmas?" As much as one hates being fired unexpected questions on live television, at least I had a ready answer. "You must buy The Children of Green Knowe," I said. Not least because it has one of the most wonderful evocations of Christmas that I've ever come across.
An email from Diana Boston, the daughter-in-law of Lucy and now keeper of the flame, popped into my inbox a few days later, thanking me for my support. Did I know that 2004 is the 50th anniversary of that first book? Perhaps I would even like to write something...
Months later, here I am, quite lost and longing for Boggis to hove into view. The satellite navigation system has just announced: "You have arrived at your destination. Guidance ends here." But I'm in a sleepy village street - no moat, no Norman hall, no topiarised yew in sight - and have to ring for directions. Diana is clearly tickled that the manor doesn't even register on 21st-century technology; quite appropriate for the home of a woman who claims: "Sometimes I think I'm disappearing into the 12th century."
Lucy Boston, the author of the books, as well as several other works for children and adults, and two sparkling memoirs, was born in Lancashire in 1892, the youngest of six children. Her father died when she was quite young. "I was said to be strikingly like him, though I can't see it in photos, or in the very unappealing portrait of him as Mayor that confronted all my youth," wrote Lucy in Perverse and Foolish, the record of her earliest years. "It was a monstrous picture, painted by a cripple (doubtless because he was a Wesleyan as we all were) with his feet." Her parents were ardently religious, and bible readings and prayers were a daily occurrence. On his return from the Holy Land, her father had turned his drawing room into "perhaps such a room as Joseph of Arimathea might have had", with a frieze depicting the journey from Jerusalem to Jericho, brass lanterns with glass oil-containers "shaped like udders... such as might have hung in Solomon's temple", wooden arcades and recesses, and brass bowls and jugs. "This unexpected room did not look at all like a Kardomah Cafe as you might perhaps think," wrote Lucy drily. "It looked like a gentleman's enthusiastic and satisfied near- lunacy."
Judging from photographs, the Wood children divided into two physical types: the fair ones, plain Mary and Phil, who wore cascading Fauntleroy curls; and the dark haired ones, with sloe- black eyes, into which category Lucy most definitely fell, with her indomitable chin and piercing gaze. Looking at photographs of her as a child, it's hard not to think that she was always somehow practising to be an old lady.
In his adventures, Tolly is abetted by the mysterious and wise figure of his great-grandmother, Mrs Oldknow, who is immeasurably aged yet somehow the best company a boy could wish for. In her survey of literature for children, Boys And Girls Forever, Alison Lurie comments that whereas adults and experts approve stories which contain a "Wise and Good Grown- up", children would much rather have adult villains and children who fend for themselves. Nevertheless, The Children of Green Knowe works so well because Mrs Oldknow is a benign but often absent figure. Tolly's adventures are his own, but Great-Grandmother is on hand to solve riddles and offer gentle support and comfort. Just as well, when the questions posed by the house turn out to be so complicated.
