A Peaceful Retirement by Miss Read (pseudonym of Dora Saint) ~ 1996. This edition: Michael Joseph, 1996. Hardcover. ISBN: 0-7181-4123-7. 152 pages.
Poor Miss Read! She has been banished to a dark corner of our bookcases by fiat from my spouse/co-reader – he can’t abide her, which distresses me (mildly) because I quite like these subfusc village dramas. If we can call them dramas; that might indeed by overstating the magnitude of the action here.
I tried once again to stick up for Miss Read when he caught me deep(ish) in this one a few days ago. “I know they’re not exactly exciting,” I said, “but think of it this way: when nothing else seems to click they’re decent place-holders, requiring no effort whatsoever on the reader’s part. They’re not bad books. Maybe a bit priggish occasionally…”
“Aha!” he said. (Or an exclamation to that effect.) “Priggish. Exactly. I think that’s why they annoy me.”
So there you have it. One man’s opinion. But I will still read them, especially when nothing else appeals. So soothing, like vanilla pudding or something equally mild.
This is the last book in the long Fairacre series (20 books), which started back in 1955 with Village School, a fictional account of the observations of headmistress “Miss Read” in a two-room school in the invented village of Fairacre.
Rich with well-observed detail, ex-schoolteacher Dora Saint’s many low-key novels and novellas give a fascinating glimpse into ever-changing rural England over the four decades in which they are set. The narrator in these particular books (there is also another non-school-centered series set in another fictional village, Thrush Green), happily unmarried spinster-by-choice Miss Read, is a woman of stern morals and quiet wit; she observes, records, and only very occasionally makes an out-loud statement on things which pass under her eye. She has learned early on that the schoolmistress inhabits a specific niche in the village hierarchy – slightly above shopkeeper, just below vicar – and woe betide the unwary soul who steps out of place or makes unpopular pronouncements.
In A Peaceful Retirement, our Miss Read has recently suffered several mild strokes. Her doctor has advised leaving her work, which she does with good grace but some regret; she feels like she hasn’t quite finished with that job, but she sets her sights on taking care of herself, fully relinquishing her status and retiring to a small village a short distance away from Fairacre, Beech Green.
Here Miss Read discovers that an apparently free woman still in her capable years is seen to be the natural choice for a vast number of volunteer positions; she must become adept at saying “No!” rather forcefully in order to maintain even a modicum of inoccupation; the “peaceful” of the title is ever so slightly ironic.
So what happens in A Peaceful Retirement? A whole lot, but not much.
Our narrator copes with an old admirer, now unhappily married, who comes to lay out his woes for her advice. Another long-time suitor persists in proposing to her at every meeting; she mulls over the possibility of accepting his suit, but settles for the status quo – frequent drives and teas and dinners – with each returning to one’s own solitary abode each night.
A trip is made to Florence with a friend; nothing in particular happens; it was a pleasant change and gives much scope for happy reminiscence in the subsequent months. A week’s substitute teaching in her old school brings home to Miss Read how pleasant retirement is; she is rather disturbed to find how tired she is after coping with children all day long; she knows she has made the right decision.
A window of new interest opens up in her life with the commissioning of an update to the local church’s historical write-up; this leads to the keeping of a journal, and, yes, the first chapter in a book about a village school…
This was Dora Saint’s last novel; she was 83 when it was published; time to lay down her own pen and move gently into what one hopes was a happily peaceful retirement, for real.
This book did what it was supposed to do: it satisfied the reading urge, it was amusing, it was restful. Judged for those reasons, and not in comparison with richer fare and stronger stuff, I must give it its due. 8.5/10. (Yes, Miss Read is indeed occasionally priggish; she lost her point-and-a-half for certain unnecessarily judgemental attitudes here and there.)
Leaves & Pages 
A very fair assessment. The first time I read Village School, I could not believe how, in every detail (including the coal-fired furnace) it brought back to me the 2-room, 35-pupil village primary I attended in Sussex in the late ’50’s. My own Miss Read was called Miss Fowler, and she lived in a flat attached to the school. She had a real bathroom, but we had to use outside bench toilets!
The detail in these books is outstanding; the observations are so particular and so obviously drawn from life. Dora Saint’s fictional school/villages were amalgams drawn from personal experience; her work rings true, doesn’t it?
When I retired from the Toronto Public Library, I re-read Miss Read’s “A Peaceful Retirement”. While there is much advice for retirees about working part-time, travel, volunteering, spending time with grand-children, et al, Miss Read wrote about the more low-key every day joys of retirement. In the long run, I found this to be more enjoyable than having to listen to the endless bragging of some retirees about all of their ‘accomplishments’ post-retirement. After working for about a half century, everyone deserves some down time. 🙂
Yes, indeed! 🙂 And what I liked was how well Miss Read stands up for herself in the face of such a flurry of “good ideas”, and how her best friend is so worried that our retiree will sink into depressed loneliness, when the exact opposite is the case – she has to be very firm with all and sundry in order to be able to spend a bit of time just sitting in the garden relaxing!
I have a couple of the Thrush Green books on my shelves but still have yet to read them or anything else by Miss Read. But it’s nice to know they are there for when I need a place-holder book (an important part of any reading diet)!
I adore Miss Read, I do confess, I recently got bogged down in The Market Square, but then the last fourth of the book picked up and I loved it so much.
I can’t manage more than one of these at a time, as it were. But they are grand for an occasional change of pace.
I love Miss Read. Have read the first Fairacre book so many times! Have read all of the books from all of the series many times. There comes a lull in your reading, the weather changes, maybe having some stressful times and you go to your Miss Read bookshelf!
Exactly! 🙂
I see books like Miss Read as being marshmallow reading, very little effort required but somehow comforting in times of stress. I think I would worry if my husband was a fan!
Good point! Mine doesn’t much care for D.E. Stevenson, either, though he had good things to say about the Mrs. Tim books. Others he tried fell flat for him, so we have agreed to differ on those as well as Miss Read. It’s rather interesting to see how many books/authors we both love, and then there are others, perhaps not so different, that we find unreadable and tease the other for liking! (Marshmallow reading – I like that! It fits.)
I was quite a fan of Miss Read for the longest time. When I thought to revisit the series I couldn’t get into them. Now I know why–she is priggish (but I still like her)
You have put it very well, I agree with all you say, including ‘only read one at a time’. But the world would be a smaller place without Miss Read, and sometimes she is just the perfect book. And surely the works are an anthropological/sociological treasure trove of attitudes, lives, assumptions – and just plain details of how people lived.
Yes, indeed. All of what you say, Moira. 🙂
I also enjoy Miss Read. I have especially fond memories of the audio books read by Gwen Watford or Sian Phillips. APR is read by SP &, inspired by your post, I’ve just downloaded it from Audible. I’ll look forward to a few very pleasant hours of marshmallow listening (I love that description!).