Miss Read Remembered by Ron Perry
This Play is the copyright of the Author and must NOT be Performed without the Author's PRIOR consent
MUSIC: Look at that Girl by Guy Mitchell
Robert Lusty’s office
Robert Lusty stands and shakes Dora’s hand
Robert Lusty Good afternoon, Miss Saint, welcome, welcome!
Dora Saint Good afternoon, Mr Lusty. Mrs.
Robert Lusty I beg your pardon?
Dora Saint Mrs Saint. I’m married.
Robert Lusty Quite, quite! Please do take a seat, Mrs Saint.
Mrs Saint sits gingerly on the very edge of a chair
Robert Lusty Tell me, Mrs Saint, how long have you been writing?
Dora Saint A number of years. I always felt that I would get down to a
little writing when I had time.
Robert Lusty And did you have time?
Dora Saint Yes, I had more time when my daughter started school.
That’s when I started writing in earnest.
Robert Lusty What type of writing did you start with?
Dora Saint The light essay.
Robert Lusty I see. And which magazines took your work?
Dora Saint Well, I aimed high - at Punch. I received many rejections
before they took something, but once they had taken one, I worked
several years for them.
Robert Lusty What other publications do you write for?
Dora Saint Several magazines such as Country Life, The Lady, the
Times Educational Supplement, and also the BBC Schools Broadcasts.
Robert Lusty Quite reputable journals. Really quite reputable.
Dora Saint And, of course, the Observer.
Robert Lusty Of course, of course! The charming village school article,
‘The Lucky Hole’ which I enjoyed so much. Well, Mrs Saint, I wonder if
you would like to try your hand at a full-length village school book?
Dora Saint Full length?
Robert Lusty Yes, indeed.
Dora Saint How many words are needed for a book?
Robert Lusty Oh, about seventy thousand.
Dora Saint (She rocks back in her chair in horror!) That I cannot do!
Seventy thousand words! I’ve never written anything longer than a
thousand words.
Robert Lusty Oh, you won’t find it difficult. Just make a start and you’ll
find it quite easy. And just like ‘The Lucky Hole’, I think it should be
written in the first person and presented as an autobiography of a village
school headmistress.
Dora Saint Yes, I see. Would it be published under my own name?
Robert Lusty Would you, I wonder, consider publishing under a
pseudonym?
Dora Saint Yes, I would. Although I’ve been writing for several years,
I’m not very well known anyway under my own name, D. J. Saint. Yes, I
would be happy and grateful to shelter under a pen-name.
Robert Lusty What name should we give for this central character? An
ordinary name I think is best? What do you think?
Dora Saint My mother’s maiden name was Read. Would that be a
suitable name?
Robert Lusty Splendid! We need look no further. Read it is! With no
Christian name mentioned. Miss Read.
Dora Saint Miss Read!
Robert Lusty comes round his desk to Mrs Saint who stands, they smile
and shake hands
MUSIC: Trumpet Voluntary by Jeremiah Clarke
Jill Saint And so Miss Read was born. As Dora once said, she was
born fully clothed in sensible garments and aged about forty. Village
School was published on 5th September 1955, and was set in the
fictional downland village of Fairacre. The book was very well received.
2nd Narrator ‘Miss Read writes with faithful precision and a slightly
ironic detachment. Humour guides her pen but clarity steadies it. Her
portraits are delightful. As a contribution to educational thought, Village
School, by its very absence of advocacy, is no inconsiderable argument
for the retention and improvement of our village schools.’
3rd Narrator The Times Literary Supplement.
4th Narrator ‘As full of fresh air as a nosegay from the fields and
hedgerows.’
3rd Narrator The Sunday Times.
1st Narrator ‘Miss Read as a country-dweller has been blessed with a
love of nature, a taste for every one of the dramas with which rural life is
fraught, and a sense of humour.’
3rd Narrator The Tatler.
Jill Saint Leonard Buckley, editor of the Times Educational Supplement,
rang my mother to tell her she had achieved a hat-trick, in that there
were reviews in The Times, the T.E.S. and the Times Literary
Supplement! Village School was followed in quick succession by two
more books, Village Diary and Storm in the Village. In those far-off
times, my mother would have been profoundly surprised if anyone had
told her that she would write a good many more novels about Fairacre,
its school, and its inhabitants. The penultimate Fairacre book was
Farewell to Fairacre. I dared her to call it Fed Up With Fairacre, but she
chickened out! Dora’s final Fairacre tale was published in 1996 and was
called A Peaceful Retirement. A neat rounding off and a grateful
retirement for Miss Read, the village school-mistress.
4th Narrator By 1958, Dora was getting rather weary of the people of
Fairacre, and found writing in the first person somewhat irksome. She
wanted a new village, a few well-defined characters, and this time she
was determined to write in the third person.
2nd Narrator What did Jane Austen advise her niece Anna when the girl
was embarking on her first novel?
1st Narrator ‘You are now collecting your people delightfully, getting
them exactly into such a spot as is the delight of my life; three or four
families in a country village is the very thing to work on.’
Jill Saint During the war, my parents lived in the pleasant Oxfordshire
town of Witney, as my father Doug was stationed with the RAF at Brize
Norton nearby. I was born in Witney and we lived at 94 High Street.
Many an afternoon, I was pushed in my pram the half-mile or so up the
steep hill which led to Woodgreen, on the northern end of Witney. Here
the road divided, the left-hand one skirting the green, past Holy Trinity
Church and the Three Pigeons pub, while the main road went on to
Woodstock. Dora greatly admired the honey-coloured houses round the
green, and her lifelong love of the Cotswolds was established.
4th Narrator Therefore, in 1958, it was to Woodgreen that she turned for
her next novel.
3rd Narrator Woodgreen became Thrush Green.
1st Narrator Witney became Lulling.
2nd Narrator Holy Trinity Church became St Andrew’s.
3rd Narrator The Three Pigeons became the Two Pheasants.
4th Narrator And a village school was inserted beside the green, where
there is none.
All Narrators And, of course, all characters that appear in the book are
entirely fictitious!
Jill Saint And so Thrush Green was born! My mother had long wanted
to write a book where all the happenings take place in one day. She
decided to make it a special day, so it was the visit of Mrs Curdle’s Fair
to Thrush Green on May 1st, based on the annual Witney fair.
4th Narrator Thrush Green was the first of thirteen books in the series,
the final one being Christmas at Thrush Green published in 2009. This
was written, with Dora’s approval, by Jenny Dereham, her long-time
editor.
1st Narrator In 1988, Dora wrote, ‘The years I spent in Witney, although
over-shadowed by the war, were among my happiest. Friendships were
made which still endure, and affection for the Cotswolds grew deeper
over the years. Perhaps that is why I really prefer to write about Thrush
Green rather than the imaginary village of Fairacre.’
Jill Saint In 1998 my mother was made an MBE for services to literature.
All Narrators And she jolly well deserved it!
Jill Saint Miss Read was a castaway on the BBC Radio 4 programme
Desert Island Discs, broadcast in July 1977. Last Word, the Radio 4
weekly obituary programme also included an item about Miss Read in
April 2012.
3rd Narrator Newbury Today. Thursday 12 April 2012.
‘A world renowned novelist and Shefford Woodlands resident has died, ten days short of her 99th birthday. Dora Saint, who used the nom de plume Miss Read (her mother’s maiden name), died peacefully at home on
Saturday. She retired from writing at the age of eighty-three, after penning more than forty books. Mrs Saint’s novels were published worldwide and in 1990 she had sales of two and a half million copies. She was equally popular in America where the appeal lay in the perceived Englishness of her books. Many of her novels were also
translated into numerous languages, including Japanese and Russian.’
4th Narrator ‘A memorial service will be held at St Mary’s Church, Great
Shefford, on Thursday May 17th at 2.30 pm.’
The Hymn Praise, my soul, the King of heaven.
4th Narrator There were many readings and tributes given at Dora’s
memorial service on that lovely afternoon in May 2012.
Jill Saint At the end of her moving tribute to my mother, Jenny
Dereham, her good friend and editor, recited In Memory by Clemence Dane:
4th Narrator
When I am gone, fear not to say my name,
nor speak of me in muted tones
as if it were a shame
for one to die.
Let me figure in your daily talk!
Tell me of loves and hates,
And how I used to laugh
Or take a walk.
This way you’ll keep me in your memory,
Which is my hope of immortality.
Jill Saint When Miss Read arrived at Fairacre School to take up her
headship, Miss Dolly Clare was nearing retirement and was in charge of
the infants’ class. They remained friends for the rest of Dolly’s long life.
Victoria Connelly, a fellow novelist, read a short extract from Changes at
Fairacre – the scene after Dolly Clare dies.
2nd Narrator ‘Although, from now until the end of my own days, I knew
that there would be this poignant sense of loss, yet there was no need
for prolonged grief. A long and lovely life had ended, but Dolly would be
remembered by many for years to come, by all those who had passed
through her hands, and had come under her wise and gentle influence,
which would shape their views and outlook for the rest of their lives.
It was with gratitude, not grief, that Dolly would be remembered.’
[End of Extract]