Miss Ranskill

I'm feeling a bit emotional at the moment. I've just been to see Atonement and thought it was wonderful. I really enjoyed watching the film, even though my heart was breaking knowing how it would end. There were quite a few previews and a couple caught my eye. The first film I've known about but hadn't seen the preview for was Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day which looks perfectly charming. The second was for Young@Heart - this is a documentary about a chorus of elderly people singing rock songs. Here is a link about them.

Now on to the title of this post, Miss Ranskill, Nona Ranskill that is, who was stranded on a desert island for some 3 years and returns to England to find the country is in the midst of World War II. This is the story told by Barbara Euphan Todd in this republished 1946 book, Miss Ranskill Comes Home. Nona Ranskill has returned a brave and practical woman, yet the England she returns to is greatly different than the one she left. There is humor in this tale, of a woman who does not understand the status quo; along with this comes embarrassment and confusion. I spent the first part of the novel feeling so badly for Miss Ranskill - to the point at which my husband told me 'it's just a book, you know!' Well, yes it is, but so well told I really felt for the heroine. I couldn't help but think, as annoying as I think many of us consider 'the media', what a different welcome Miss Ranskill would have had in 2008. She would appear on the news, be cared for at a hospital, be provided for and her family would be found. I don't like to give the plot away, but let's just say Miss Ranskill experiences a quite different 'welcome'. This is the tale of a great and abiding friendship that transcends sex, class and even life, of a woman who must find a way in this new world this she does not quite understand and how she does it with strength and grace and love. A most remarkable book.