Small Bomb At Dimperley

This caught my eye on the shelf at Oundle Library recently, so I borrowed it on a whim. It's an ideal book to read on a rainy Sunday afternoon in winter because it's easy, quick, utterly charming and quite undemanding. In other words, the sort of book that we all sometimes feel the need to read.

The year is 1945. The war is over and the demob has just begun. Valentine Vere-Thissett, a 23-year-old lowly corporal in an army regiment, and the youngest son in his family, is about to be sent home, which is something he doesn’t really want. Home is a dilapidated and decaying 15th century pile in Buckinghamshire, up to its eaves in debt and full of fly-blown taxidermy and dusty furniture. The problem for Valentine is that his dashing war hero older brother has now, at long last, been confirmed as dead, and so he is now Sir Valentine Vere-Thissett. A role he had fervently hoped never to have to inhabit.

In residence is his mother, Lady Irene, a stiff and formal woman who cannot fathom that the social hierarchy of yesteryear is no longer in place. There’s also the hero’s widow, a pretty, downtrodden woman with two wayward daughters, and Val’s uncle, a vastly boring local historian who has spent his adult life writing an interminable book about the family. Also in residence are his uncle’s secretary, Zena Baxter, a highly intelligent young woman of low birth with an illegitimate daughter, and Hershey, lady’s maid and woman of all work.

Problems fall on Val like hail from the moment he arrives home, in the form of death duties, a leaking roof, crumbling stonework and a bomb crater by the lake – all of which will cost money he doesn’t have. His mother cannot understand that the lack of money is a problem. She thinks it could be easily solved if Val marries well. After all, his father had done just that, and it was her dowry that saved the estate. The fact that 35-years, two world wars, and a new Labour Government have happened since then, can (in her eyes) have no bearing on anything.

Add to all this that the National Trust, when approached, has said it wouldn’t touch the place because it is too much of mix of styles, and Val has a problem. How he, Zena and Hershey solve these difficulties is a highly entertaining read, involving public days, stuck army lorries, dog shows, false identities and much else.

My verdict
Small Bomb at Dimperley is well written, in an easy undemanding manner. All the characters are really well-realised, from the unbending lady Irene; the two teenage girls newly home after five years in America and unable to adjust to the restrictive life of post-war Britain; the severely dyslexic, but certainly not unintelligent Val; or the pretty widow’s secret boyfriend (a very rich scrap merchant and a man of the people).

The setting is also well described. You can just imagine this freezing, dusty, draughty old building, complete with rusting suits of armour and secret passages. But it is the paying visitors who take the biscuit in terms of entertainment value. Their comments on walking through all this then having tea and rock cakes afterwards are priceless.

If you’re looking for a bit of escapism this undemanding book is the read for you! I will give it 4 stars for its charm and fun.
Review by: Freyja