Blitz Writing: Night Shift and It Was Different at the Time, by Inez Holden (2019)

As a rule, I don’t cover in print books on this site: the fact that a book is in print is proof that it may be underappreciated, but it’s certainly not forgotten. However, I have to make an exception in the case of the Handheld Press’s recent release of two of Inez Holden’s three books about life in Britain during World War Two in Blitz Writing: Night Shift and It Was Different at the Time.

I wrote about Holden’s other war book, There’s No Story There, back in August of 2018. I owe Kate Macdonald, the owner of Handheld Press, for passing along a PDF of a well-worn copy of the book that she in turn got from Kristin Bluemel, and these two women are responsible for bringing Blitz Writing to print. Bluemel’s introduction is invaluable not just for putting these two books in the context of writings about the war but also for providing the only available overview of Holden’s life and work to be published this century.

Although Night Shift is a novel and It Was Different at the Time nonfiction, the two books are related by more than just time. As with There’s No Story There, the real strength and connective tissue of the books is Holden’s finely-tuned ear. Whether her dialogue is invented or recorded — probably a mix of both — Holden was expert at capturing a whole person in their words. Whether it’s a long recollection by Mabs, one of the factory workers in Night Shift that’s almost a one-act play about battling Romeos, or just a line or two, Holden’s gift for exposition via dialogue is exceptional.

Holden and her friend Felicity visit an art show, for example, that turns out to be an attempt to market some kind of fuzzy-minded mysticism. As they attempt to escape, one of the cult members, referred to as “Norfolk-jacket,” swoops upon them. “Is there anything you ladies would like me to explain?” Felicity mutters an excuse about being late for an appointment, but Norfolk-jacket plows ahead with a sales pitch that would please any die-hard Scientologist: “Yes, yes, I shall be happy to tell you everything about the real meaning of life. Every Tuesday at half-past two we have lectures on the great and only truth…. Not so much a lecture, you understand, as a social, when Cosmic Wisdom is given to guest free, gratis.” Nothing quite sells profound revelation of the mysteries of the universe as packaging it in the form of tea socials.

At a fancy dinner party in November 1938, a Nazi emissary of some middle rank says of German intervention in the Spanish Civil War on the side of Franco, “No, he has — I mean our Fuehrer has — absolutely no interest in Spain. He will be glad to withdraw the few thousand of broken-down troops. The Fuehrer just sent them there for the sake of Mussolini’s blue eyes. Of course he thinks it good practice for our airmen.” To which Holden observes, “This was the first time we had heared anyone speaking of killing civilians from the air as being ‘good practice.'” “For the sake of his blue eyes,” by the way is an expression one hears from Dutch and German speakers, a way of saying “It’s nothing, just some trivial thing.” Holden manages to peel back the informality of a bit of dinner party chat and reveal the cold-blooded murder running beneath it.

To give you some idea of the service that Handheld Press has performed in issuing Blitz Writing, I will bring your attention to the fact that used copies of Night Shift and It Was Different at the Time have been unavailable at any price for years, and only a few copies of either are available through libraries. WorldCat tells us that there are a total of 23 copies held worldwide of Night Shift and only 13 copies of It Was Different at the Time. Neither book was ever reprinted or reissued until now. This is what saving neglected books looks like, folks. Keep up the good work, Kate!