posted on 25 Aug 2022

The Midwinter Violins by Sally Bicknell

The Puffin version of this book was published in 1976, three years after the original hardback release. I’d never heard of the book or its author but, as with so many Puffins of this period, it has an arresting bit of cover art – provided on this occasion by Michael Jackson – and that was enough for me to take it away and spend an afternoon reading it.

This is clearly ‘young adult’ fiction written well before that label was invented. In many ways it’s an ‘old fashioned’ adventure story but with a distinctly dark set of more adult themes running through it. Drug cartels, murder, violence and a bit of cultural stereotyping (in this case the Chinese/Japanese community get cast as treacherous criminals) are all packed into its 170 pages.

As the book opens, Charlotte is preparing for her entry exams for Cambridge University. She’s part of a blended middle-class family living in Chelsea – her parents are intrepid  travel writers and she has two half-brothers who are both younger than her. A nanny of sorts – Mrs Bowen (known to the children as Boney) – lives in and they have a concert violinist (Misha) who lives in an attached but self-contained flat and is treated as part of the family. The children are also friendly with a rather cardboard cast of working class characters who live and work in the neighbourhood.

Christmas is approaching and because their parents have an assignment to go to in Australia, the children are to be packed off to distant French relations for the holiday. Misha meanwhile has a programme of concerts to attend, has just split up with his glamorous girlfriend and is expecting the delivery of an inheritance of a violin he’s having sent from Japan.

In the lead-up to Christmas as the children prepare to leave, a mysterious stream of ‘Orientals’ call at the house looking for Misha who just happens to never be there to see them. But all this mystery takes a back seat when suddenly the youngest child – Tim – is struck down by measles and the proposed trip to France has to be cancelled and Christmas has to be spent at home.

Misha then has a concert to play in Birmingham and this triggers the start of a complicated and exciting series of events that put the children and Misha in great jeopardy. What follows is a story of drug smuggling, murder, gang warfare and abduction – all of which I’m not going to say anything about because it would only spoil your reading pleasure.

The book is a real page-turner and it made me want to find out a bit more about the author. Sally Bicknell was one of the pen-names used by Sarah Greenaway Miall (née Leith, 18 December 1918 – 6 October 2010) who, as well as being the author of a handful of novels -  The Midwinter Violins (1973), The Summer of the Warehouse (1979), and Follow that Uncle! (1980) - was a rally driver and a Second World War codebreaker at Bletchley Park. I was anticipating that it would probably be quite hard to find out more – I’ve discovered before that so many authors and artists that pre-date the internet and are not ‘famous’, tend to disappear from sight. But on this occasion I was fortunate enough to come across a website that had already done the hard work for me. So, a shout out to ‘Rambles of a Writer’ who has published these two posts:

https://ramblesofawriter.wordpress.com/2018/04/27/midwinter-violins/

https://ramblesofawriter.wordpress.com/2020/05/13/more-midwinter-violins/

Copies of the Puffin paperback aren’t as ubiquitous as many other titles but they can be found for under £5 on second-hand sites. I can’t, however, locate one of the original 1973 edition for sale anywhere.

 

Terry Potter

August 2022