Something Momentous

Ann Quinton was born in the 1930s and grew up in Ipswich during the Second World War. She went on to become an author, writing historical romances (under the pseudonym Margaret Dewar) and a series of Suffolk based detective novels in the 1990s. Now in her nineties, and with the help of her friend, Jeff Taylor, she has published a new novel.

Something Momentous is an autobiographical fiction, weaving Ann’s own recollections and experiences as a child with a story that involves love, loss and even a murder. The protagonist is Lorna Brown, a five year old living in Ipswich in 1939 when war breaks out. Over the next few years she experiences the loss of close family and friends and goes to stay with her great uncle and aunt on a farm in the village of Tunstall, some miles to the north of Ipswich.

Close to Tunstall is a (fictional) American bomber airbase, and the interactions between the locals, including Lorna’s cousin Peggy, and the airmen form much of the substance of the story. When a local girl gets pregnant, and an airman mysteriously disappears, an investigation ensues.

Ann Quinton’s descriptions of life in Ipswich and Tunstall during the war will also be of interest to social historians. She vividly describes Lorna’s fears of the bombing raids, and her experience of friendships and losses as first a young London evacuee comes to live with her family and suddenly leaves, then two Jewish refugee girls come and go, and finally her best friend’s family are killed by a direct hit on their home from a German bomb. In Tunstall, Lorna finds her uncle having to work all hours on the farm trying to cope after his son and other workers are called up to fight. For a while his only help is Freddy, a young evacuee from London, and then later two ‘Land Girls’. The descriptions of the harvest and manual farm work at the time are fascinating.

The author also cleverly weaves in a story about Lorna’s Uncle Arthur, who is missing, believed dead, after the Dunkirk evacuation. However, he washes up on a French beach and is helped by a poor fishing family until the Germans get close.

This book is in some respects a memoir, but by building stories around her memories, the author has created something much more engaging, whilst still capturing the spirit of the times and the emotions of a small child. The book ends with a scene from after the war, with the hope of the 1950s and peace, and an ‘epilogue’ set in recent times that fills in the story of ‘Lorna’s’ later life and that of some of the other characters. Well worth a read if you are interested in Suffolk wartime history, or just a good story.