To Serve Them All My Days by R.F. Delderfield

My dream profession had always been teaching. I got my degree and then I did work as a teacher in Poland for a period of two years and even now, ten years later, I look back at it as my best times working. Somehow, life didn’t work out the way I wanted and while living here I gave up teaching and became a translator instead. But I still do look back with nostalgia and sentiment at the time when I felt most fulfilled spending time in a classroom with my students. Therefore, reading To Serve Them All My Days by R.F. Delderfield became a very personal and beautiful experience to me.

The novel gives us a story of David Powlett-Jones, a young man traumatized by three years fighting in WWI , who ends up getting a teaching position in Bamfylde, a public school for boys in England. P.J., as he is called by all who know him, applied for this job at the suggestion of his war doctor to heal his mental and emotional wounds acquired while fighting in this war meant to end all wars. David soon finds out that teaching is not merely a job but that it becomes a way of living and true healing. He makes dear friends among teachers and students alike and discovers that he was born to be a teacher, a guide for all the boys who change from children into adolescents right in front of his eyes and under his guidance. And miraculously, his own wounds do heal and the school prepares him for what’s to come in life just as much as it does those boys he teaches. It’s another wonderful saga by Delderfield spanning the years between the end of WWI and the beginning years of WWII in which there is a lot happening in England just as much as in all other parts of the world.

In my review of God Is An Englishman, I already expressed my great affection towards Delderfield’s writing talent. To Serve Them All My Days not only confirmed it but turned out to be actually better even though I didn’t think it possible. It is not an easy book to read in terms of the subject it deals with. There are many heartbreaking moments when I was reminded how much havoc WWI did wreak in lives of all people, especially the ones who survived. David, who as a boy went through the death of his father and his two older brothers who died buried in a collapsed coal mine, emerged from the three years spent on the battlefield shattered and without hopes for ever being able to deal with war experiences. Bamfylde’s headmaster, Algy, deals with the deaths of boys he came to treat as his sons, he raised to adulthood only to send them to their demise. Many times I cried because I was reminded how real all these war experiences were even to us, almost a century later. Not to mention, David’s commitment to his students and his life lived through his teaching, was something I could identify with to the point where I would stop and think that by giving up teaching myself, I defied my destiny somehow.

I truly adored this novel and I was sad to let it go. I wish there had been more of David and all others that came after him. R.F. Delderfield is now officially on the list of my favorite writers. The book is quite big, with 600 pages but once I started reading I didn’t notice the length at all. Reading To Serve Them All My Days is an experience, not merely an activity and it is one of those books that give you a story you will not soon forget, that will give you characters that you will know, inside out, and you will crave to meet one more time.

*******
Special Thanks to Danielle J. from Sourcebooks, Inc for sending me a copy of this book for review.

Book Info:

Author: R.F. Delderfield
Title: To Serve Them All My Days
Published In: 2009
By: Sourcebooks Landmark, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.
ISBN: 1402218249

If you would like to get other points of view, please visit:

Kristen's review @ We Be Reading

Tricia's review @ Library Queue

Carey's review @ The Tome Traveller's Weblog

God Is an Englishman by R. F. Delderfield

Ever since I can remember, I have always been drawn to big books. And I’m not talking about ‘chunky’ ones only but big in meaning, characters and events, very often spanning generations. Therefore, when I first looked into R.F. Delderfield’s God Is an Englishman trilogy, I knew I was up for a feast.

God Is an Englishman is the first book in this wonderful saga about the Swann family. Adam Swann, a 31-year-old cavalryman in the service of Queen Victoria’s army, decides to break off with his family’s military tradition and gives up his soldierly life in lieu of starting anew in England as a businessman. The road ahead of him will not be easy, as old sentiments still prevail where people making a living in a new, industrial England are looked down on and someone like Adam, giving up his army career is thought foolish. Adam Swann persists in his desire to be his own boss and not spent his life serving somebody else, even if it’s the Crown of England. In his struggles to become a respectable and successful owner of a horse-carriage business, he has a few supporters, including his young wife, Henrietta and, surprisingly, his own father. The readers follow Adam and his personal and business lives for nine years. These are very tumultuous years for England as well. It is the 19th century, the country changes from an agricultural one into an industrial empire, with railroads ruling the transportation, mills, mines and factories replacing the farms and Adam Swann takes on a daring project of using horses as his road to success.

I thoroughly enjoyed God Is an Englishman, so much so that even before I finished it, I went and got part two (Theirs Was the Kingdom). It’s not an easy read by any means, but very captivating and really a requirement for anyone who wants to read more about one of the most important periods in England’s history. Some might say that it’s reminiscent of Dickens’s books but I should say that probably only in the time set. Through Delderfield’s book I got a hopeful outlook, not a grim one. True, it’s still England where poverty is on the rise, where child exploitation flourishes but it’s also England where one doesn’t have to belong to royalty in order to become well-off, successful and if they’re persistent enough, respected. ‘Common’ people now have a chance to have careers and to be truly in charge of their lives. I must say that I liked this approach and I just was riveted by Adam Swann and by the whole process of him starting from a scratch and, despite unexpected failures and ‘bumps ‘, holding on to what he believed and never losing sight of what Adam deemed as success.

That’s one great part of God Is an Englishman. Another one is the multitude of characters, bad, good and just average, but they all change, they all grow and, as a reader, you really have your pick in which ones are going to be your favorites. Mine was Henrietta, Adam’s wife. I think she grew the most throughout the novel. She changed so much but still somehow retained her youthful innocence despite some occurrences that would turn many into bitter, prematurely old women. Henrietta and Adam’s marriage is not an easy one, some would even say it’s doomed from the beginning, but yet again, Delderfield just serves us this happy story, with both parties fulfilling their dreams, among the turmoil of their times. Don’t get me wrong, it isn’t a ‘happily-ever-after Cinderella’ story but an uplifting one nonetheless, despite the many problems that could endanger both Adam’s and Henrietta’s happiness.

I say that if you’re a ‘saga junkie’, if you are even remotely interested in the history of England and want to meet people, who in the end you feel are your friends or at least next door neighbors, God Is an Englishman and you will be a perfect match.

*****
Special thanks to Danielle J. from Sourcebooks, Inc. for sending me a copy of this book for review.
Special thanks to Sourcebooks, Inc. for re-issuing the Swann saga and other R.F. Delderfield's titles. The editions are wonderful and I wouldn't have known about this 1970's British writer without Sourcebooks.

Book Info:

Author: R. F. Delderfield
Title: God Is an Englishman
Published in: 2009
By: Sourcebooks Landmark, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc
ISBN: 1402218214

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Medieval Bookworm here
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