BfK Profile: Philippa Pearce
Julia Eccleshare reflects on Philippa Pearce’s latest book and on her distinguished career as a writer for children.
Almost every book published in 2004 was signposted as being by an exciting ‘new talent’. And some of them were. But, without being disrespectful, as an experienced reader one sometimes tires of the rookie writer who may tell a great story but leaves you feeling that some of the craft of writing has still to be learnt. It’s a feeling that is brought home when you pick up a book by an established writer who, carefully over many years, has refined how she tells her stories into something rare and special without losing anything of the pleasure given by the story itself.
I read the opening paragraph of Philippa Pearce’s The Little Gentleman and smiled. Sounds corny, I know, but the feeling of being in the hands of a writer allowed me to relax completely. In today’s heady excitement about children’s books – the proud boast that they are about story which is why everyone is reading them – the importance of how they are written has sometimes been lost. When you read Philippa Pearce you are reminded that it should never be forgotten.
But, like all the others, Pearce too was once that ‘new’ talent. Minnow on the Say was published in 1955 and Pearce was immediately identified as one of a new generation of post-war writers feeding the imaginations for the hopeful ‘never had it so good’ generation. Alongside C S Lewis, William Mayne, Rosemary Sutcliff and Lucy Boston, Philippa Pearce wrote for modern children but at a time when childhood was still seen as being a period of imagination and freedom, allowing for a certain amount of personal irresponsibility while also investing in children thoughtful and sophisticated emotions. Fictional children at this time were ‘childlike’ but not ‘childish’.
A sense of place
Minnow on the Say was a runner-up for the Carnegie Medal (which was won instead by the last of the pre-war generation – Eleanor Farjeon for The Little Bookroom). An adventure story with a memorable background of two boys spending days on the river in dappled summer light, it brought images of freedom and exploration to life, held within a somewhat conventional ‘adventure’ story with the children trying to find a solution to the adults’ problem. Pearce’s strong sense of place – which has become a hallmark of so much of her writing – was already obvious but, as is often the case with first novels, the story is overly long and rather too plot-heavy.
Pearce took three years to produce her next book – an unheard of gap for contemporary authors who would run the risk of losing their place altogether in today’s crowded market. But Pearce used it to excellent effect. Tom’s Midnight Garden was published in 1958 and is altogether sparer in its plotting, relying instead on the creation of place, atmosphere and feelings: Pearce’s ability to allow the reader to think as they read was becoming evident. It won the Carnegie Medal and has been considered a ‘modern classic’ ever since.
As in Minnow on the Say, Pearce’s sense of place is central to the story. The action is largely confined to the events within the walled garden though moments of expansion, such as when Tom and Hatty skate to Ely on the frozen river, remain memorable. The garden is the one in which Pearce herself grew up which explains the sense of Hatty’s belonging within it. It provides the perfect backdrop for the meetings between Tom and Hatty who, living in different times, come together in the garden to share moments of each other’s lives. A novel of separation, it captures the unidentifiable yearnings that mark the end of childhood and the beginning of adolescence. Tom’s Midnight Garden shows Pearce’s ability to convey big emotions without spectacular show but with quiet intensity.
The intensity of longing
The powerful feelings of a child for something beyond his reach are also the theme of Pearce’s next novel, A Dog So Small (1962). Possibly Pearce’s most intense novel and certainly her saddest, Ben’s desire for a dog is only partially understood by the adults around him. When they fail to provide the dog he so yearns for, he dreams one up for himself.
These three novels in just under a decade mark out Pearce’s writing territory. Terms such as real and imaginary become less important as the two run comfortably beside each other, especially as far as children are concerned. She shows children and childhood as a time of great, almost magical, value; she respects children and their views, especially the intensity of their longings. These she takes seriously, recognising their force and reality. She is never, ever patronising or belittling to children. Rather, she sees them as conduits for something special – having receptivity to outside influences – magical, mysterious or just ‘sympathetic’. From such a standpoint, her presentation of their fears and anxieties as perfectly sensible if ‘different’ is utterly convincing. Above all, she is refreshingly non-judgemental about children.
After three such substantial novels, Pearce hit a lighter vein with her next full-length novel after a gap of over 15 years. Drawing on her years as a parent, and written for her daughter who was passionate about animals, The Battle of Bubble and Squeak (1978) has not a whiff of fantasy about it. Instead, it is on familiar, domestic territory charting the children’s desire for a pet and the adults’ resistance to getting one. Despite such a different story line, The Battle of Bubble and Squeak and the many short stories of all sorts which she has written throughout the years all bear Pearce’s trademark of concise style. She never has to ‘tell’ the reader anything; everything is conveyed in her careful, spare writing. It reflects an implicit trust in the reader to understand and believe in what the writer is trying to say and to think for themselves.
But the more serious side of Pearce had not gone forever. The Way to Sattin Shore (1983) is a darker and more hectic emotional drama than Tom’s Midnight Garden or A Dog So Small. Against a background of mystery and things never quite known, Kate has to embark on a vigorous adventure to piece together the confusing elements of her own childhood. An unexplained letter, an unexpected visitor, the inexplicable disappearance of the beloved cat – these elements of mystery and adventure make The Way to Sattin Shore a more conventional novel in terms of structure than, particularly, A Dog So Small but it has a similar emotional integrity capturing the immense importance of Kate’s need to grow beyond accepting what she has been told by adults about her father’s disappearance.
A luminous vitality
And now, more than 20 years later, another novel brings Pearce sharply back into focus. It reminds those who grew up on her books that authors of such quality do not fade away and gives those who did not an opportunity to ‘discover’ her for themselves. Although its storyline has a distinctly valedictory feel to it, The Little Gentleman has all the luminous vitality of Pearce’s previous novels. After the different locations of A Dog So Small and The Way to Sattin Shore (both set in other places that Pearce knew well, though not as well), Pearce has moved back to her home ground, setting The Little Gentleman in the meadow which lies alongside her cottage, just down the lane from the Mill House, home of Tom’s Midnight Garden and the river which transports the Minnow on its adventures. It’s here in the meadow that Bet, a composed little girl, full of wisdom and a kind of naïve intelligence, forges an unusual friendship with an exceptional mole. It’s a friendship that crosses all barriers of communication. The Mole has wisdom, a deep wisdom that matches his uncounted years. Of course it’s incredible. Talking moles who can recall the part they played in the Jacobite rebellion can never be real any more than it could be possible for Bet, in a scene reminiscent of Alice’s descent down the rabbit hole, to travel freely along the mole’s dark tunnels. But this is no fantasy either. The meadow provides a calm and wholly real physical background that belies the possibility of anything out of the ordinary, while the lightly sketched but nonetheless emotionally profound re-establishing of contact between Bet and her mother would, in other hands, pass as ‘social realism’.
What else would you expect? Pearce has never been an author to be pigeonholed or categorised by anything as simple as genre. Her hallmarks are far more subtle, though still recognisable and The Little Gentlemen is a timely reminder to go back and seek them out.
Julia Eccleshare is co-director of the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education and the Children’s Books Editor of The Guardian.
The Battle of Bubble and Squeak (0 14 132000 1, £3.99), A Dog So Small (0 14 030206 9, £4.99), The Little Gentleman (0 14 138990 X, £9.99, paperback in September 2005 – 0 14 131839 2, £4.99), Tom’s Midnight Garden (0 14 030893 8, £4.99) and The Way to Sattin Shore (0 14 031644 2, £4.99) are published by Puffin.
Minnow on the Say (0 19 275148 4, £4.99) and also Tom’s Midnight Garden (0 19 271777 4, £6.99) are published by Oxford.
