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Snapshots from Home

Pantera Presserschienen am01.07.2023
'Please send snaps of my dear mother and father, my sisters Sarah and Evelyn, and my bonzer little poddy calf, Zeus.' It's 1917, three years into the Great War, when Edie takes up a teaching post in the small Australian town of York. Mourning the loss of her beloved brother on the Front and evading her father's plans for a respectable marriage, she's glad to keep busy teaching at Miss Raison's School for Girls. After a little persuasion, Edie agrees to take part in a comfort scheme sending photos of home to the troops. Edie's new venture throws her into the path of the family secrets, scandals and class complexities of her new town - and a handsome, exasperating man her father would never approve of. With each new encounter, her world gets bigger and more complex, until Edie's asked to make choices that could turn her cautious life upside down - and change the very course of history. Drawn from the true stories of Australians during WW1, this is historical fiction at its best. Charming and heartfelt, Snapshots from Home is perfect for fans of Fiona McIntosh, Joy Rhoades and anyone who loved The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.

Sasha Wasley was born and raised in Perth, Western Australia. She completed a PhD in feminist literature at Murdoch University in 2006, and went on to work as a copywriter on topics ranging from mine safety to sex therapy. Sasha's debut novel was published in 2015, after which she gave up her copywriting business to pursue her fiction writing career. Sasha is passionate about levelling the playing field for members of the community experiencing disadvantage. She is an Ambassador for the Books in Homes Australia charity which provides books of choice for children in disadvantaged circumstances to keep in their home libraries. Today, she lives and writes in the Perth hills region with her partner and two daughters. A lover of animals, Sasha spends her free time pottering in the garden with her flock of backyard chickens. Sasha is the author of Spring Clean for the Peach Queen (2021) and A Caravan like a Canary (2022).mehr

Produkt

Klappentext'Please send snaps of my dear mother and father, my sisters Sarah and Evelyn, and my bonzer little poddy calf, Zeus.' It's 1917, three years into the Great War, when Edie takes up a teaching post in the small Australian town of York. Mourning the loss of her beloved brother on the Front and evading her father's plans for a respectable marriage, she's glad to keep busy teaching at Miss Raison's School for Girls. After a little persuasion, Edie agrees to take part in a comfort scheme sending photos of home to the troops. Edie's new venture throws her into the path of the family secrets, scandals and class complexities of her new town - and a handsome, exasperating man her father would never approve of. With each new encounter, her world gets bigger and more complex, until Edie's asked to make choices that could turn her cautious life upside down - and change the very course of history. Drawn from the true stories of Australians during WW1, this is historical fiction at its best. Charming and heartfelt, Snapshots from Home is perfect for fans of Fiona McIntosh, Joy Rhoades and anyone who loved The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.

Sasha Wasley was born and raised in Perth, Western Australia. She completed a PhD in feminist literature at Murdoch University in 2006, and went on to work as a copywriter on topics ranging from mine safety to sex therapy. Sasha's debut novel was published in 2015, after which she gave up her copywriting business to pursue her fiction writing career. Sasha is passionate about levelling the playing field for members of the community experiencing disadvantage. She is an Ambassador for the Books in Homes Australia charity which provides books of choice for children in disadvantaged circumstances to keep in their home libraries. Today, she lives and writes in the Perth hills region with her partner and two daughters. A lover of animals, Sasha spends her free time pottering in the garden with her flock of backyard chickens. Sasha is the author of Spring Clean for the Peach Queen (2021) and A Caravan like a Canary (2022).
Details
Weitere ISBN/GTIN9780645498554
ProduktartE-Book
EinbandartE-Book
FormatEPUB
Erscheinungsjahr2023
Erscheinungsdatum01.07.2023
Seiten432 Seiten
SpracheEnglisch
Dateigrösse1637
Artikel-Nr.12106637
Rubriken
Genre9200

Inhalt/Kritik

Leseprobe




1
Boarding Rooms for Respectable Ladies


The train journey east was fifty miles of noise, heat and discomfort, but the beauty made up for it.

For the first part of the trip, great marri trees sported clumps of white blossom, blood-red sap oozing from their trunks. After a couple of hours these gave way to York gums, with their ruddy bark and spindly upper branches, reaching for the sky as if hungry for sunlight. Edie would have liked to open a window and feel the air - but the soot would get in her eyes and everywhere else. Even looking like you might open a window earned you the glares of other passengers.

Edie leaned back against her seat, losing herself in the rushing scenery. People on the train discussed the weather on the Western Front and the pause in fighting while men on both sides attempted to survive the icy winter. One passenger was giving his travelling companion a decided opinion on the recent sale of Australia s entire wheat harvest to Britain. Edie tried to block out their words. Every word - every idle mention of the war - stabbed her with the memory of her brother.

A soldier was dozing in the seat opposite. He must be heading home on invalid leave, or perhaps had been discharged due to injury. Edie caught herself studying him from across the carriage. He was pale and there was a pink scar on the back of his wrist, just visible beneath the sleeve of his uniform. Earlier, he d been coughing and had scrabbled for a handkerchief to cover his mouth. Was he ill? She d heard of terrible gases the Germans used in battle that could leave a man s lungs ruined forever. There were diseases, too, that ripped through the trenches: typhoid and pneumonia. In his letters, her brother had hinted at other diseases - things Edie supposed the men caught through immoral behaviour in the brothels of Cairo.

The soldier jerked awake, then drifted off again just as quickly. Yes, he was certainly unwell, but at least he was alive. She tried to rein in her thoughts, but it was no good. The image of Aubrey s face, cold and white in death, gave her a jolt of nausea. Edie dragged her attention back to the view out of the window, taking breaths as she watched the mellow afternoon light dance on the uppermost leaves of the gums. Once, she would have tried to capture that light with a camera, but Edie couldn t bring herself to touch one these days. Her passion for photography had died with her brother.

Aubrey s death had been instant. A shell blast. That s what the War Office told them, anyway. Aubrey s friend Bill confirmed it when he wrote to give them the circumstances.

Her brother had spoken highly of Bill Bogle in his letters to Edie - always delivered via Aubrey s fiancée so their father wouldn t know. Edie had read between the lines: Aubrey had found someone who might suit her as a husband. Someone pleasant who could offer Edie a home a long way away in the southern town of Albany. They both knew she needed to settle far from their father, with his whip-quick changes of mood and hissed criticisms.

Edie didn t much like the idea of Aubrey s escape route. Yes, Bill seemed a very pleasant, even intelligent, young fellow - he d kept writing to her and in his latest he d described his hometown, his cottage in the hills overlooking the ocean, and his prospects of taking over a blacksmithing business when the war was over. But Edie had never imagined herself a blacksmith s wife and she had a sneaking suspicion she didn t have a lot in common with Bill. Besides, her father would have a conniption if she so much as joked about marrying anyone in trade.

When Aubrey was alive, he had tried to convince their father to let Edie go to London, ostensibly to move in the right circles and gain accomplishment and poise . In reality, Aubrey was convinced she was a photographic prodigy. He thought Edie would be happier there, immersed in the excitement, art and conversation. She could learn about the world - improve her photographic and painting abilities - expand her mind. And more than any of that, she could get away from their father, with his judgements, his control, and his unreasonable expectations - never properly communicated but always rigidly enforced. Edie had wanted to go to London to be a photographer, too - but not any more. She didn t want anything to do with cameras now.

A memory unfurled: Aubrey laughing at one of Edie s terrible first photos. She d wobbled the old camera so much she d accidentally given the swan three heads. Aubrey taught her how to position the camera legs properly and keep it as steady as possible. She could still picture his freckled face under the thick crown of red-brown hair, never obedient to a comb; the concentration in his eyes; and his mouth curved in a perpetual smile. Of their own accord, Edie s lips smiled in answer, taking her by surprise.

You re excellent at selecting a view, Edie, he d told her when she was about fifteen and he eighteen. You ve got an eye for it. You ve been a far better photographer than me for years. One day, you must go to a great city, get yourself in front of the best photographer you can find, and demand he give a colonial girl a chance!

She fished in her bag for Aubrey s letter. It was an object of comfort these days - the equivalent of a child s scrap of blanket. She didn t want to open it again; it had grown alarmingly thin and faded from eighteen months of handling. But just holding it, seeing Aubrey s firm copperplate and the words My dearest Edie made him come back to life for an instant.


4th May 1915

My dearest Edie,

Having a fine camp out. We were relieved from trenches yesterday morning and slept last night on slopes above the beach. This afternoon we go back into trenches nearer to the centre of the battle line.

Got your last and was very glad to hear Dad has finally agreed to let you go to teachers college! All those letters and hints from me and your chatter about the fine Miss Kelvins being allowed to train must have got through his skull at last. Will you do the six-month course or the full year? I should think, with your time as a monitor, you ll only need the six months. I can just see you walking along the streets of some pleasant little country town with a crocodile of girls behind you! The shortage of men teachers should mean you ll have your pick of positions.

But this is just a temporary measure, of course. When I m back, we ll get you off to London. You mustn t waste your talents, Edie. I ve told Bill all about your photo-painting and he quite agrees it would be a crying shame if a talent like yours were to go to waste.

I can t wait for you to meet Bill. He s such a good bloke - honest and good-tempered. His sisters, Lily and Nora, sound like rollicking good fun as well. I d love to see you with chums like those girls, getting out and having a bit of amusement in your life. Albany is several hundred miles from Perth and by all reports it s a very good place indeed. If London doesn t work out, then Albany might be a fine second option. Do prepare yourself to meet Bill and get to know him very well. I ll introduce you as soon as we re home and we ll have quite the shivoo.

Now, I must tell you about a jolly good thing I ve just heard about. It s a comfort scheme run by the YMCA called the Snapshots from Home League. How it works is very clever - the YMCA chaps hand you a card and you write down a couple of things you d like to have a snap of. Then they gather up the cards and send them home, and their chaps at the other end pass out the cards to civilian photographers, who go and visit your family and take the snaps for you. Then they send them back to you. Isn t that top-rate?

It gave me an idea - could you take snaps of Florrie and Dixie, and perhaps the house, and send them to me? The only problem is that I d like one of you, too, so you might need to teach Florence how to use our old camera. Then I had another idea - what if you were to sign up as one of the civilian photographers, Edie? It would be good fun, a great comfort to the boys, and wonderful practice for your portrait photography. Dad won t like it, of course, but you could always keep it under wraps. I doubt he ll notice the camera missing from my room. Florence will help you with any subterfuge required - she loves that sort of thing. And she can lend you a few bob if it costs anything, but I understand the YMCA covers it all.

What do you say, Edie? Haven t I hit upon a bonzer idea?

Write back at once and tell me you agree, why don t you? I shall look forward to my snaps, as well.

As always, your loving brother,

Aubrey


Edie stroked the edges of the page with gentle fingers, then tucked it back into the folded piece of card she kept in her bag for the purpose. She didn t look at the soldier again but kept her gaze on the scenery....

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