An ordinary woman, rather like yourself.’ These were Peter Fleming’s words when he commissioned Jan Struther to write what became her ‘Mrs Miniver’ columns for the Times. Critics complained then, and have complained ever since, that Mrs Miniver is no ‘ordinary woman’. She rings the bell for tea, takes taxis everywhere, and has a second home in Kent.
As I read These Wonderful Rumours, the 1938-1945 diaries of a Derbyshire schoolteacher in her twenties called May Smith, I kept thinking, ‘Here is your perfect ordinary woman.’ And I was not being pejorative. Ordinary does not mean dull. It means unpretentious and normal.
Through the seven years covered by the diaries, May Smith takes hundreds of buses, has numerous coats fitted at Bracegirdles in Derby, reads volumes and volumes of fiction ranging from Jane Eyre to Maigret, plays countless games of tennis in her tennis dress, and decorates her classroom for Christmas seven times, standing on tiptoe on the desks.
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in