The 1962 Club: Apple Bough / Noel Streatfeild

At the age of nine I started a new school (the custom in my part of North-East Somerset), and new schools mean new libraries, and new libraries mean I start reading Noel Streatfeild.

I knew of Streatfeild already from the shelves of books from my mother’s childhood at home, but at nine even I wasn’t effete enough to want to read Ballet Shoes. (That came later.) Still, something about her evocative name (the first syllable mispronounced in my head as Street, not Stret, until I learned better some years later) attracted me to the books in my classroom.

My first Streatfeild was either The Circus Is Coming or The Growing Summer, I don’t now recall. It was The Growing Summer that quickly became one of my favourite books. I graduated to others, but I can’t now remember which I read, or what they were about. A Vicarage Family, Caldicott Place … 1962’s Apple Bough might almost have been one of them, but I would certainly have remembered it if so, as it might have been written for me.

A tiny part of the appeal of The Growing Summer was that it centred around four children with the bizarre surname of Gareth, which made it special to me. Apple Bough is about four children with the no less bizarre surname of Forum. Was Streatfeild unaware that most people in the world don’t have stupid names? Very possibly: the dedicatee of Apple Bough is ‘my American god-daughter Priscilla McOstrich’.

The Forum children are Myra (9, named after Dame Myra Hess), Sebastian (8, Bach), Wolfgang (7, Mozart) and Ethel (5, Smyth), their parents piano accompanist David and scatty artist Polly. Although named after musicians of note, the only Forum who has talent in that direction is violin prodigy Sebastian. When a performance of ‘Gipsy Airs’ (presumably Sarasate’s Zigeunerweisen, not desperately likely repertoire for an 8-year-old but we’ll let that pass) creates a sensation, a whirlwind of international touring beckons, so the Fora enlist the services of eternally capable governess Miss Popple, put their beloved home of Apple Bough on the market, and take to the skies.

Isn’t Streatfeild good at creating dreams for imaginative children? As a young reader I’d have lapped up this fairytale of a childhood devoted to making music, just as wannabe ballerinas did Ballet Shoes. There’s a good sprinkling of real life to make it seem plausible: one sticking point for Sebastian (and later Ethel) is that British law dictates you can’t earn a living from performing until you’re twelve. What do you do if you’re a kid who has to perform? Go abroad.

It’s not all about Sebastian. As with The Growing Summer, each of the four children has their own distinctive personality, and every reader will have at least one child they particularly identify with (the Little Women effect). While Sebastian is touring, Wolfgang (Wolfie, Wolf) realises his great dream is to write pop songs, to the horror of his music-snob father (‘[If] it happens,’ he tells David, ‘I’m afraid you’ll just have to be brave about it’), and also lands some acting work; Ethel (Ettie) is desperate to dance, which leads to a meeting with Madame Fidolia of Ballet Shoes; oldest child Myra doesn’t know what she’s going to be, doesn’t perceive in herself any special talent, which makes her the beating heart of the book. ‘You have a trouble which is unique in your family,’ says her perceptive grandfather. ‘You underestimate yourself.’

Perhaps you’ve read Saplings, Streatfeild’s brilliant novel for adults, now published by Persephone. It’s also about a family of four children, in this case a family splintered by the Second World War. Elements of Apple Bough are like Saplings in negative. In Saplings, the fracture of the family is catastrophic; in Apple Bough, some form of fracture seems almost desirable. Polly is determined at all costs to keep the family together, but years of following in Sebastian’s wake, comparatively neglected, leave his siblings resentful and unsettled, the unit unable to prosper while its individual members are pulling in different directions. (Sebastian needs help too.) What the children require is some kind of benign emancipation from their well-meaning but oblivious parents. Thank goodness for understanding grandparents and secret ploys, that’s all I can say.

If it seems unusual to name a book after a house that’s hardly ever glimpsed, it seems less so as you come to realise how closely the children’s dreams of stability are bound with the memory of their old house. Apple Bough is not just their home, it’s an emblem of home.

‘The nicest thing I know,’ [Wolfgang] said once, ‘is eating tea at the same time at the same table knowing it’ll go on being at the same time at the same table for weeks and weeks.’

I won’t say how things turn out, but you can probably guess.

It’s funny how these books, so dated in some ways, have remained timeless. The centenary of Ballet Shoes approaches, and yet I’m sure it must still be loved by each new generation of readers. I was happy reading Streatfeild’s 1960s books at thirty years’ remove, and I hope they still come to life in the minds of children today. One thing in Apple Bough that might be slightly passé to the modern reader is a Cockney husband and wife who risk straying into caricature territory, but actually their liveliness is a great asset.

‘Mrs Bottle – Mr Bottle – I’m going on telly.’

Of course the Bottles were as thrilled as Wolfgang.

‘That’s ever so nice, dear,’ Mrs Bottle said. ‘And just the right place for you, I shouldn’t wonder.’

Mr Bottle dug Wolfgang in the chest with one finger.

‘And while you’re there you might ‘ave a word with any ‘igh-ups you meet to tell ’em we don’t want no more talks nor brains’ trusts.’

Plus ça change.

Tags: Apple Bough, Books, Music, Noel Streatfeild, Reading, Saplings, The 1962 Club, The Growing Summer