Description
It is September 1939 and five-year-old Lorna Brown is at her grandmother’s house in Ipswich.
The sound began as a whirring noise and at first she thought it was related to her game, but it grew into an unearthly wail that dipped and rose in a crescendo that assaulted her eardrums as a physical pain. The jam jar slipped from her fingers and smashed on the crazy paving, and she hurtled back to the house, sobbing in fright. Her father explains:
‘The war has started, and German aeroplanes will be flying over to drop bombs on us. When they get near the siren will sound so that we will know that they are on their way and can take shelter.’
And Lorna is offered an extra slice of cake. As Lorna was only ever allowed one piece of cake, which she had already had before her sortie into the garden, she knew something momentous was up and hurriedly helped herself to another slice before her grandmother changed her mind.
Ann Quinton was also five in 1939 and Something Momentous is inspired by her own experiences and those of her friends and family during World War II, in and around Ipswich.
As the war proceeds Lorna experiences and learns to cope with loss: her best friend is killed by a bomb, and other family members are lost while serving their country. And she spends her summers with her great-uncle and aunt on their farm at Tunstall, whose only help is an evacuee boy from London and two ‘Land Girls’. After the war, in the summer of 1951, Lorna visits the Festival of Britain and sees something else momentous – the country’s future, laid out in front of her.
Kelly –
Loved this book – absorbing and evocative of the time. I felt like I was in 1940s Suffolk.