The Camomile Lawn

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This is a wartime story, largely set in Cornwall and London during the days immediately before WWII and the following six years, as we watch different generations deal with going to war, sending loved ones off, managing with privation and bombardment and lives turned up side down as well as changing behavioral codes. War changed lives in so many ways. The small daisy-like flowers with white rays and yellow centers bloom through the summer and into fall.

Behind the large house, the fragrant camomile lawn stretches down to the Cornish cliffs. Here, in the dizzying heat of August 1939, five cousins have gathered at their aunt's house for their annual ritual of a holiday. For most of them it is the last summer of their youth, with the heady exhilarations and freedoms of lost innocence, as well as the fears of the coming war. I was terribly moved by the segments of the book that focus on the older characters, and see them through the eyes of the younger generation. And I admired the skill with which Wesley interweaves these 1980s segments in with the 1940s segments, doling out just enough reminiscence and reflection at a time to inform each. There is a real sense of narrative momentum leading up to the funeral to which all the characters are travelling. Other characters come into play in the novel, particularly the Jewish refugees. In the story, the rectors wife doesn't believe Hitler is doing such horrible things to the Jews. Such horrors unimaginable to someone with a kind heart. It is a true account of the thinking of the times, an innocence to horrors. The rector also has twin sons that have always been a part of the group of cousins.This was the second novel in a sequence that Wesley published in her later years - the first of which, when she was 71, was Jumping the Queue The Camomile Lawn was her "breakthrough" novel, and was filmed for television in 1991. She had been writing all her life for her own pleasure, but apart from two novels in the late 1960s, which did not make a mark, had always thrown away what she wrote. The wonder is not that Mary Wesley wrote this wise and funny novel when she was in her 70s. The wonder is the advantage that being over 70 affords to a novelist. She could enter into the heart of the 10-year-old Sophy, lonely and displaced, because that was her own situation as a child. She could identify with Calypso and Polly and their emotional chaos during the war, because she herself at that time (though a little older) was in London and living vividly, working at the War Office, having lots of affairs. The novel is cross-cut by the return of the cousins to the house with the camomile lawn for Max's funeral in the 1980s, when the survivors have grown old. A younger writer would find it hard to make so real the elderly, rambling Polly, or Calypso damaged by a stroke - both of them remaining so utterly and recognisably themselves - with such humour and acerbity. (Only Muriel Spark, another writer with whom Wesley has much in common, was able to do that before she grew old, in Memento Mori.)

A novel about a group of English cousins at the eve of WWII and what happened to them in the war, with flash forwards to the present day. We see much of the action through the eyes of Sophy, the odd girl out because she's much younger than the others and because of her Anglo-Eurasian race. As in other England at war novels, the war gives these young people opportunities for adventures – sexual ones – that they wouldn't have had in conservative pre-war days. There are some interesting twists in their emotional lives and several of the characters end up in places they never expected to go. I like that one of the women who finds herself behaving unconventionally is a woman in her 40s who had been the model of a good wife. I was obscurely pleased that the femme fatale cousin wears the same perfume I do, Mitsouko. This novel starts in 1935, with a group of five cousins, visiting the house of their Aunt Helena and Uncle Richard, for a holiday by the sea. There is the beautiful Calypso, siblings Walter and Polly, the brooding Oliver and young, unwanted Sophy. Add to the mix the Rector’s twin sons, David and Paul and their guests, Max and Monika, married refugees, and you have the main cast of the novel.

There's such drama in the sensuality of contingent scenarios – which YA fiction instinctively gets. Not only is it pleasurable to read about the emotional highs and lows of people in wartime, but these emotions also offer us the opportunity for self-reflection. I had to wonder how I would behave if total war were now declared, and everyone I knew were caught in the upheaval of it all. I'm closer to Helena's age than the other young characters – would I seize hedonism with both hands, as she does?

For me, one of the best depictions of the homefront during wartime era UK since watching the film Hope and Glory. Here's a great quote from the author describing herself during that war: "too many lovers, too much to drink... I was on my way to become a very nasty person"I'm glad Mary got a hold of herself!Other ground-cover plants you might want to try are nigella seeds (aka kalonji) – these have smaller, dainty flowers than the standard ornamental varieties in shades of white or pale pink – and fenugreek, which looks like a spreading white clover. Both can be sown by simply scattering seeds over bare ground and watering well. Mary Wesley tells not shows, and that's perfectly fine. She was 72 when she wrote this and she could damn well do as she pleased at that age!

Then comes the War. Men go to service, women contribute to the war effort in the top secret offices, there are supply shortages, coupons for clothes, air raids and telegraphs about killed and lost in action. Despite all that, life doesn't stop. On the contrary, life goes on and develops in most unexpected ways. Peacetime rules don't apply, vicinity of death makes everyone, young and old, look for happiness where it can be found and not, where the conventions suggest it should be…. The only downside is that these lawns aren’t incredibly tolerant of heavy trampling, so they may not be the best in areas with high foot traffic such as kids’ play areas. The convoluted relationships in this long spun-out coming of age tale are complex, comedic and well written and I'll never think about my Nana and Grandpa during the war years in the same way again (FYI my mother was conceived in the dying days of WWII - nuff said).

In early fall, or after all threat of frost has passed in spring, broadcast seeds on the surface at a rate of 1/2 oz for every 1,000 square feet of area and tamp lightly to keep in place.