🎄🎄Book Review: Christmas with the Savages (1955) by Mary Clive🎄🎄(and a new favourite word)

The second set of Savages back-to-back, though not linked with the first at all, except that both books have children in them with this one focusing on them more than on the adults.

But before I say anything about the book itself, I just have to say that my new favourite word (noun/adjective, whichever one sees it as) is Howliboo! I loved it the moment I read it and am sure will be using it often!

Back to the beginning now. When Arpita from Bag Full of Books announced over on her Instagram page a readalong of Christmas with the Savages, I was immediately interested as from the cover itself it looked a lovely children’s book and the author Mary Clive was a completely new name to me. So I went ahead and ordered a copy. Lady Mary Clive or Mary Katherine Clive (who died in 2010 at the age of 102) was the author of memoirs of her family, some biographies (John Donne and Edward IV) as well as a handful of novels written under the pseudonym Hans Duffy. A debutante in 1926, she wrote amusing memoirs (Brought Up and Brought Out) of her experiences and the rather disappointing crop of young men (‘bumper dowdy year’) whom she and others met. Christmas with the Savages (1955), though fictionalised, is based on Christmas spent with her mother’s parents, the Earl and Countess of Jersey and the various children portrayed are based on her own brothers and sisters and cousins.

Christmas with the Savages is narrated in the voice of the fictional Evelyn, about eight years old, the only child of wealthy parents in London, brought up with every comfort and also a little spoiled perhaps (by the standards of the day) being allowed in the drawing room regularly unlike others of her age. Being mostly on her own, Evelyn is accustomed to thinking herself rather grown up, and carries herself with various airs and graces. As the book opens, we see in a typical scenario that Evelyn’s parents are away in Scotland where her father has taken ill, with the result that they won’t be back as planned and Evelyn is to spend Christmas with her mother’s friend Lady Tamerlane, whom she remembers as ‘brisk’ and ‘not playful’ but who sometimes gave her half crowns. But she won’t be ‘alone’; there will also be Lady Tamerlane’s grandchildren, the Savages. On the train down from Paddington with her maid she meets them, Lionel the oldest, absorbed in his book, Betty, fat and round, the youngest in her picture book, and Rosamund and Harry in the middle, out to classify everyone they meet as Cavalier or Roundhead. There’s also a baby who stays with his nurse. Unused to children Evelyn is somewhat taken aback by their constant chatter and chanting of poems. At Tamerlane Hall are also the Glens, Peter and Peggy and the older Malcolm and Alister who sit with the grownups, and the smaller and pretty ‘Howliboos’, the eldest of whom is Tommy and whose real surnames we never learn, nor indeed the other children’s names as they are much too young to play.

As the visit carries on, the children get up to various antics, from reciting poetry to playing games, besides (when the weather is good) going out for walks and rides and exploring the house itself (a rather interesting old place). Then there are the Christmas celebrations of course and other little entertainments, including the putting up of a play (which needless to say turns out hilarious in its performance), the writing of a magazine and even the running of a marathon, as we also witness the interactions and dynamics between the children  

This turned out a charming and humorous read, which though surprisingly not strongly Christmassy, gives one a delightful look into childhood (and more broadly life in a typical country home) in Edwardian England.

I liked how each of the children has their different personality and quirks, all of which we see through the eyes of Evelyn—Betty for instance (and it is she who is our author, and not Evelyn) strongly voices her opinions against anything she thinks is untrue, not sparing even her grandmother; Lionel is the leader, writer of plays but also quite cruel to poor Peter Glen, though the others do manage to get him back. Evelyn herself is keen to be taken notice of by the grown-ups, seen as a ‘grown up’ (the Savages to her are ‘childish’) and seeks admiration, but it is apparent that she is very much a child and starts to almost enjoy being part of the group, and even getting up to mischief of her own (including snatching a mouthful of jelly on the sly and then not knowing what to do with it for swallow it, she can’t). She enjoys playing with little Tommy Howliboo too, though she mayn’t want to admit it, but does admit she doesn’t treat her nurse too well. The grown-ups are good fun too, not your typical stuffy adults, with some admitting the mischief they committed as children, Papa Savage sharing quite a good relationship with his ever-curious children and having some wise things to say, and Lady Tamerlane too (though she insists on calling Evelyn Everline, even though Evelyn has corrected her) kind to them in her own way. No one minds their mischief, even the governesses (and the butler Mr O’Sullivan) overlooking their tricks, except when they do sometimes take things too far. But by and large, they are allowed to do as they please and have a grand time of it. Their relationships and dynamics do keep changing of course, as things between children do, and it is interesting to watch these unfold.

As I mentioned, this wasn’t contrary to expectation a book that felt entirely Christmassy but that doesn’t mean we don’t get any Christmas either. In fact, I loved seeing the Christmas celebrations, from decorations being put up (including by the children in their rooms) to the stockings going up, the anticipation over what they would contain, preparations (nice and not-so-nice) to welcome Santa and the opening of presents from others, dancing and feasting.

There is plenty of humour in here, in the writing, the various characters and their antics, and there re plenty of laughs all through.

I’m not sure if the original version had illustrations across the book, but this Puffin ed I got has lovely pictures by Phillip Gough at the start of each chapter giving one a perfect flavour of what’s to come.

A gentle and amusing tale of a simpler time when children could simply be children, entertaining themselves with their imaginations and enjoying themselves thoroughly.