Ballet Shoes and Carol Singers

We are in the midst of the annual Clothes in Books trope of Christmas in Books – seasonal scenes from random books, for no better reason than I like looking for the pictures, and I and some readers find them cheery and Xmas-y. Particularly, of course, those featuring murders, boredom and other miseries - but that's a long way from today's seasonal entry...

Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild

published 1936

 

[excerpt] Then suddenly a lovely thing happened. A large choir of carol singers came under the window and sang. They all leaned out to hear, and it was like a play. The singers, both men and women, wore masks and coloured capes and hoods, and they carried lanterns. They sang most beautifully “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen,” and “The Holly and the Ivy,” and “Sleep, Holy Babe.” Pauline and Petrova took a plate each and collected money for them. Pauline did best, because she went to the kitchen, where the party was, and Petrova went to the nursery, where there was only Nana and Posy; but with what the boarders and Sylvia gave them, and their own pennies, they had nearly fifteen shillings.

Sylvia made them put on their coats, and Mr Simpson opened the front door for them, and they took the money out. The singers were just finishing the last verse of ‘Sleep, Holy Babe’. They waited till they had done, then they gave them the money. They were very pleased, and thought fifteen shillings a wonderful lot to have got; they said the money was all going to a children’s hospital. They asked if Pauline and Petrova would like to choose a carol before they went to another street. Pauline thought a moment, and before she had done thinking Petrova said - ‘Oh, please, “Like Silver Lamps”,’ so they sang that one.

comments: If you read my recent entry on the literary quiz Nemo’s Almanac, you will know that I have set a round with quotes about carol-singing – I’d like to tell you you’ll get a free starter with this one, but sadly it didn’t make the cut. (‘We need more poems’ the editor said.)

Ballet Shoes was one of my favourite books as a child, and as an adult too in fact, and is also one of the most featured on the blog.

Noel Streatfeild Ballet Shoes  Ballet Shoes 2  Ballet Shoes 3 Ballet Shoes 4

There is currently a stage adaptation of the book at the National Theatre in London: I saw it at the beginning of December and thought it was one of the best things I’ve seen on stage, absolutely tremendous. I took this picture of the set, which is enormous and wonderfully recognizable as the inside of 999 Cromwell Rd.

There were some changes to the plot, which didn’t worry me at all, and an attempt to make it more inclusive, as you would expect in 2024.

Then of course I reread the book, and yet again tried to work out how Noel Streatfeild does it: how does she give this very niche and specific story its universality? What is it about her writing that makes it mesmerising to a slice of humanity (not quite everyone, I do accept)? I can’t work it out, though I know it’s in the details. In the excerpt above, nearly all the detail is unnecessary, including Pauline 'thinking' while Petrova chooses the carol. But it creates a reality.

There is a scene where dresses are being made:

‘We could get a nice organdie for two and eleven. Four and a half yards those dresses take - that’s nine yards.’ She passed the paper to Petrova. ‘You’re good at figures: how much is nine yards at two and eleven?’

Then they need linings:

‘even if it’s only jap’

‘Get something good enough for one and six three,’ Nana thought, but she’d need two yards for each of them.

This is like a poem to me, perhaps that’s where Clothes in Books comes from. (and – on my umpteenth reading I think I found a mistake. Later in the book Streatfeild says

‘By dint of buying some extra organdie and letting out, and adding some frills, Nana had succeeded in making the frocks Pauline and Petrova had bought for ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ audition do for Petrova and Posy.’

But they were hand-made, not bought…)

You can get the full lowdown on the organdie dresses in this post I did on them, very early days of the blog, which explains that ‘jap’ is ‘jap-silk’, a thin kind of silk, obv used for linings. This is what the finished dresses looked like, using an illo from the original book drawn by Ruth Gervis, who was Noel’s sister… (more on this here, in another entry about other child theatrical books)

I can’t ever see a black velvet dress with a white collar without thinking of the Alice audition. ‘Clothes panics’ is a frequent theme round here, and there is another relevant Streatfeild entry.

The 15 shillings (three-quarters of a pound) collected for the singers would be around £40 in modern-day currency, so a generous amount. 'One and six three' means that the fabric under discussion costs 'one shilling, sixpence and three farthings' per yard.

The book has a very specific timeframe, though it does not obtrude on the whole: however in January 1936 – in real life – George V died (it was the year of 3 x kings) and the pantomimes the girls are appearing in close for mourning, and never really get going again because no-one is in the mood. So a loss of money for the family there.

Recently (post on A Fatal Gift by Alec Waugh) we were discussing how a real-life war affects the novelist’s art, and that there are characters we worry about because we know what’s coming.

In this case, Posy

SPOILER

 

ends up heading to Czechoslovakia to study ballet with a particular company in Prague. In the second half of the 1930s. The future not looking good.

As ever when reading the book, I wonder: what does Sylvia do all day? Everyone else works hard and tries to protect her, she is seen as having grave responsibilities, but, y’know, what are they? Nana works tirelessly for literally no wages. There are two more servants – a cook and a maid.  The children work – at a job that one of them actually hates – and they cannot turn down any role because of the family finances. But no-one ever thinks for a second that Sylvia might go out to work to help out. Or that she is actually exploiting and living off these children. (This is something that is very much changed in the new stageshow)

As well as the many previous entries on this book, there are various other Streatfeild books, and I will mention in particular her memoir, A Vicarage Family – two previous Christmas entries – and the mysterious Whicharts, a very  strange and somewhat inexplicable grown-up version of Ballet Shoes. And other books for adults - NS was nothing if not prolific – under the name Susan Scarlett. Tags below.

The top picture shows sketches for costumes for carol singers in a musical on the life of Charlie Chaplin. NYPL