To All The Living by Monica Felton

 

To All The Living by Monica Felton.

Published 23rd September 2021 by The Imperial War Museums as part of their Wartime Classics series. First published in 1945.

From the cover:

In January 1941 Griselda Green arrives at Blimpton, a place ‘so far from anywhere as to be, for all practical purposes, nowhere.’

Monica Felton’s 1945 novel gives a lively account of the experiences of a group of men and women working in a munitions factory during the Second World War. 

Wide-ranging in the themes it touches on, including class, sexism, socialism, fear of communism, workers’ rights, antisemitism, and xenophobia, the novel gives a vivid portrayal of factory life and details the challenges, triumphs and tragedies of a diverse list of characters. 

Adding another crucial female voice to the Wartime Classics series, To All the Living provides a fascinating insight into a vital aspect of Britain’s home front.

*****************************

To All The Living is the newest addition to the fascinating Wartime Classics series from the Imperial War Museums, which introduces forgotten novels from WWII to a modern audience. The women writers of the era have been especially overlooked, so it is great to see that this one is written by the female author Monica Felton.

In Felton's book we get a glimpse of the lives of the men and women working in a sprawling munitions factory in the remote fictional town of Blimpton, in 1941. Her examination of their experience supporting the war effort on the home front is comprehensive, covering a swathe of themes on both personal and political fronts, that combine bureaucracy, ideology, the practical difficulties of managing and staffing such an enterprise, and some very intimate dramas from a substantial cast of characters from all walks of life. This makes the novel somewhat sweeping and as rambling as the very nature of the munitions factory itself, and there is more than enough to hold the attention of anyone intrigued by the nitty gritty of life during wartime.

There is so much detail here about how the factories supplying the mechanics of war operated. This was repetitive and tiring work, for which the workers were paid very little, and Felton shows exactly why such factories found it hard to recruit and retain the staff they needed to run a smooth operation - it also shines a light on exactly why the decision was taken in December 1941 to conscript women to contribute to the war effort.

For all the intriguing factual information Felton lays out here, it is the human element of the book that is the most compelling. She delves deep into the lives of the ordinary people who find themselves rubbing shoulders with those that they would otherwise never have met, and engaging in the kind of work that would have been completely alien to them in peace time. The contrast in education, class, political views and social conventions among our cast of players is really brought to the fore as so many people from all over the British Isles are thrown together in Blimpton, uniting some of them with a sense of community and kindness, and driving others apart with simmering tensions and seemingly unavoidable clashes. Blimpton becomes a microcosm for the world at large, and discrimination and fear guide the actions of more than a few of its residents. Much of this is very telling about Felton's own wartime experiences, her ideological leanings, and her views of social mobility.

This is a book that focusses on both men and women, but for me it is the women who are the most interesting in this novel. In particular, you get a real sense of the sadness of those parted from their loved ones, and the grief of the women who have lost husbands or sweethearts and have found themselves torn away from the future they envisioned. Their pressing need to find a way to support themselves is poignantly tangible, and it is desperation that has brought many of them to Blimpton. There is plenty of gritty reality in these pages, and an atmosphere that reflects the despondency of a country beset with shortages and little in the way of good news, but there is also friendship, camaraderie, romance, humour, and a real sense of bloody-minded determination too. 

I think it is fair to say that this is a book that takes a little while to get your head around as the style is very much of its time, the themes are diverse, and there are a lot of characters to keep track of (helpfully there is a list of characters at the beginning for you to refer to if needed). There are also references to more than a few political events and faces that would have been familiar to readers when this book was published, but are not well known to audiences today, which sometimes means Felton's more sardonic allusions get a bit lost - especially the in-jokes between characters.

However, this is a story that it is really worth the effort, as I found myself becoming rather fond of some of the characters and very invested in their lives, and the wealth of social history packed into the telling of their stories is incredible. This is a story of the home front as you have never seen it before, and it will make you think about aspects of the Second World War in whole new way.

To All the Living is available to buy now in paperback from your favourite book retailer.

Many thanks to the Imperial War Museums for sending me a copy of this book in return for an honest review, and to Anne Cater of Random Things Tours for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.

About the author:

Monica Felton (1906–1970) was a feminist, socialist, peace activist and a pioneering proponent of town planning. During the Second World War she served in the Ministry of Supply, on which her publications Civilian Supplies in Wartime Britain and her novel To All the Living are based. 

In later life Felton became something of a pariah after taking an unauthorised trip to North Korea in 1951. On her return from this trip she accused American troops of atrocities and British complicity, and there was a media and establishment backlash. As a result, Felton became increasingly isolated in Britain and moved to India, where she died in 1970.