The dedication of the book reads:
“To all Maynard girls, past and present, especially …”
Clare Morrall’s novel “After the Bombing” focuses on an
Exeter girls’ school, a thinly disguised version of The Maynard. And so it is a book with an obvious link to
St Leonard’s neighbourhood.
The school is bombed in Exeter’s Baedeker raid, and four
boarding girls are billeted at the university, as the boarding house is in
ruins. The hall warden, a bachelor, is
perturbed by the arrival of young women in his men’s hall of residence, but we
learn how the atmosphere changes, helped by music. And we are confronted with the formidable
head teacher of the girl’s school, determined that school life will go on,
despite the damage to her building.
The novel takes us forward, and backwards in time, switching
between the war, and the early 1960’s.
Twenty years after the bombing, one of those boarding girls is at the
school, teaching. The ghost of another
of the quartet haunts her, as does the memory of the head teacher, who has just
died. Change comes to her, and the whole
school, in the form of a new head teacher, with an ambition to advance the
school’s reputation. And a shock comes
in the shape of the daughter of that same hall warden, now a widower.
This book will bring back memories of Exeter’s twentieth
century life. There are numerous
references to the city, including a house in Magdalen Road. Many readers will be caught up in the
intricate relations between the leading characters, and many will recognise the
human emotions that arise as a result. Recommended.
“After the Bombing” by Clare Morrall is a paperback (or
ebook) published by Sceptre.
(published in St Leonard's Neighbourhood News, July-August 2015)