posted on 22 Jan 2021

Voices on the Green edited by A.R.J. Wise and Reginald A. Smith

Sadly, in these days of global pandemic, we've got rather used to fund-raising special projects to help boost the NHS - but this isn't a wholly new idea. In 1944 as the Second World War was still raging, the editors of this anthology decided the time was ripe for a fund-raising project in support of Saint Mary’s Hospitals for Women and Children, Manchester. They wrote to a whole host of writers and artists seeking contributions and telling them:

“The book will be linked with the work of Saint Mary’s Hospitals for Women and Children, Manchester – the largest foundation of its kind in the country, with maternity, gynaecological and children’s departments and medical teaching in those subjects. Although the profits are to be devoted to the funds of these hospitals the primary purpose of the book is to deepen and spread a general appreciation of the needs of mothers and children, and of the family as a unit of society.”

It’s a mission which also explains the title chosen for the anthology which I take to be a reference to William Blake’s Songs of Innocence (specifically, ‘The Echoing Green’).

Remarkably enough the response from the arts community was pretty impressive and resulted in child-centred contributions in the form of short stories, poems, graphic art and even original music scores. You’ll find authors like Vera Brittain, Stephen Spender, Andre Maurois, Walter Greenwood, J.B. Priestley; artists such as Eric Ravilious and Blair Hughes Stanton; and contributions from musicians like (Richard) Rodney Bennett. It’s a genuine box of delights, a miscellany in the true sense of the word.

Most of the contributions are, to be fair, modest and the longest only occupy two or three pages but many of them are genuinely delightful and keep the atmosphere of the book light and buoyant. Published by Michael Joseph, the book has a utility flavour in terms of production quality and paper gauge – which given the date is wholly understandable. It does, however, have a lovely jacket (which in most copies that survive has gone missing) which was designed by K.J.H. Craddock which manages to weave a menu of contributors into the design of a wooded landscape.

This is very much a book for dipping into rather than settling down to read from cover to cover – it’s the sort of thing that can be kept by the bedside for those moments when you need something that’s not too challenging and which keeps the time commitment low. It’s also a book that deserves to be somewhat better regarded than it is – a few copies are available online for next to nothing and that’s puzzling because it’s a bit of a gem. Perhaps the timing was wrong or the wartime production values work against it but that’s good news for you if you want to snap up a bargain.

Terry Potter

January 2021