re: BOXING DAY FEATURE: Ad Pevenesae: For Sooth My Lord, hereth doth come the Mint House Blog
To the Journal
It will be interesting to follow the Mint House blog throughout 2019!
Here is an article mentioning tearooms at the Mint House in Marion Kelsey’s Canadian war journal, but surprisingly, it was in a danger zone and a no go area for young people in her host, the farmer’s eyes. Mr Marshall, kind but prudent, declines a visit to tea there:
Would be nice if a wartime tearoom ration menu somehow survived…
“Mrs Marshall and I are trying to persuade Mr Marshall to drive us to Eastbourne and Pevensey tomorrow. We want to have tea at the old Mint House, but Mr Marshall is demurring on the grounds it is unethical to take young Peter into a danger zone.”
—Victory Harvest: Diary of a Canadian in the Women’s Land Army, 1940-1944
There are a few other references to Pevensey Bay in the account, concrete sea defences etc.
Get this book in print (Victory Harvest: Diary of a Canadian in the Women’s Land Army, 1940-1944)
Deborah Sadki
JOURNAL NOTE: About Victory Harvest: Diary of a Canadian in the Women’s Land Army, 1940-1944
Book description: Based on the diary Marion Kelsey kept while in the Women’s Land Army during World War II, Victory Harvest is a personal remembrance of wartime Britain through the eyes of a young Canadian woman. Financed by a kind cousin (who gave Kelsey money for a boat ticket instead of making a donation to the Spitfire fund) Kelsey travelled to England to join her army husband. There she joined the Women’s Land Army and spent the next four years planting crops, milking cows, and driving a tractor. Her tour of duty was cut short by tragedy when her husband was seriously wounded by shrapnel at Falaise in 1944. Kelsey’s indomitable character and enthusiasm shine through in her writing and, as a woman and a Canadian, she provides a new perspective on the war.
Victory Harvest: Diary of a Canadian in the Women’s Land Army, 1940-1944
Marion Kelsey: McGill-Queen’s Press – MQUP, 19 Sep 1997 – Biography & Autobiography – 227 pages
.
