Books of the Month

'Chin Up, Girls!' edited by Georgia Powell & Katharine Ramsay

If you're anything like me and would love to read more biographies but find you rarely have the time, then this could be right up your street. Georgia Powell and Katharine Ramsay of The Telegraph's obituary desk have compiled a fascinating collection of female life stories from the newspaper's pages.

The book is organised into some compelling categories. In the 'trailblazers' section, for example, you'll come across Peggy Salaman, who broke the record for flying from London to Cape Town and picked up a couple of 'adorable' lion cubs along the way which she bottle fed in the cockpit (as one does...). Among her luggage was an evening gown to wear in Cape Town, and a few packets of chewing gum for sealing any leaks in the fuel tanks. Among the book's 'battleaxes' are pink and frothy novelist Barbara Cartland, ballgown-wearing TV cook Fanny Cradock, and 'fat lady' Jennifer Paterson. But the editors have opted to favour the unknown and interesting rather than the celebrities. So among the familiar names you'll also find Sadie Barnett, the last Dickensian landlady in Cambridge, who took a very dim view of young ladies spending the night with the male students in her digs; and Lorna Wishart, who was muse to both Laurie Lee and Lucian Freud, but having had affairs with both, married them off to two of her nieces. The title of the book comes from the first obituary, that of Vivian Bullwinkel, the sole survivor of a massacre of Australian nurses by Japanese soldiers during the second world war. Having surrendered on Bangka Island near Sumatra, the nurses were forced by the Japanese to walk into the sea line abreast. 'Chin up, girls! I'm proud of you and I love you all' their matron called to them. They were shot when the water reached their waists. Vivian survived by playing dead after the bullet that hit her only grazed her hip. She went on to make it back to Australia, testify to war crimes, and rise to the top of her profession.

There's a certain admirable fortitude about many of the women in the book. There are no whingers or complainers here. They might suffer physical and emotional hardships, but they hold true to their beliefs, have no time for naysayers or social convention, and frequently achieve amazing things. They also seem to all live to pretty ripe old ages. Must be a moral there.

Susan Tranter

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