FOR HENRY, WITH LOVE

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33857, 31 May 1975, Page 10

FOR HENRY, WITH LOVE

Henry. By • Elizabeth YandelL Bodley Head. 136 pp. N.Z. price $4.95. Very little is known of the author of ' this slim, delightful book. Elizabeth Yandell died a few days before “Henry” was accepted for publication and her only son knew nothing of her early childhood which she beautifully recreates in this book. From the text it is evident that she was the only daughter of a widower who owned a large estate in Kent, and Henry was the head gardener. “I was one year old when I fell for Henry. Thereafter I was his devoted slave” the book begins, and it is mainly a memoir of an old friend, written with devotion and nostalgia. Henry christened her “The Blister” when she baked his prize potatoes in a bonfire, Henry taught her his gardening lore, Henry took her tcr Sissinghurst and Canterbury Cathedral, pulled her half-drqwned from the water butt, and sat up with her all night for three weeks when her leg was in traction.

Almost as authoritative as Henry was Cookie whose vast recipe book was kept padlocked in her kitchen. Some of those special recipes are published here: Mousehair tea to cure Whooping Cough, Imperial Pop Oyster Powder, and Hop Pillows for the Sleepless. (“Those who by reason of great grief, study or long watchfulness cannot catch their sleep will find such a pillow serviceable.") Primarily a loving portrait of Henry, the book is also an account of rural life in England'between the Boer War and the First World War. It. is an. idealised account, written nearly 70 years later by a woman remembering a happy and sheltered childhood, but nonetheless a valid pleasant and touching picture of Edwardian England. The important occasions, the occasional dramas, the characters of the village and the estate, are all vividly depicted. “Henry” is a charming, gentle book,' carefully constructed, and beautifully written; a delight to read and re-read.