One Fine Day of One's Own

 Here's a fine combination for a quiet summer afternoon when there's no one else at home.

-Tea in a Woods Ware cup and saucer

- A box of good quality chocolates

- A mid 20th century novel by a female writer

- A British Transport Film

My novel of choice for the summer would be 'One Fine Day' by Mollie Panter Downes. This is one of my all-time favourites, that I have now read numerous times. It suits a sunny afternoon with a heavy atmosphere, this kind of weather being the star turn of the novel. The story, such as it is, follows one woman's day in the summer of 1946. It's not too long and the lack of any excitement is relaxing - perfect escapism. It is a study of how the immediate post war period was turning lives in an unanticipated direction. The end of domestic service as British society had known it, the need for middle class women to run their households with very little help, the loss of the local gentry - this is all becoming realised at the point of this novel. Middle class Laura is the main character - her hands are ruined, she's exhausted, shop girls have the whip hand over her and her mother doesn't understand what's going on and blames Laura's husband for it all.

Permeating it all, through a kind of heat haze, is the ancient landscape of southern England - in my head the one as painted by the likes of Eric Ravilious. Almost a character in its own right, like the hot summer weather, it looks on the changes with silent contemplation. At the close of the novel, Laura climbs an ancient hillfort after having sought out her wayward dog (everything is out of her control, even the pets). She falls asleep while her home and family deteriorate without her. Without a woman in the home, the cogs don't turn. Perhaps Laura is powerful after all, as she nestles in the womanly curves of the hillfort with her lusty female hound. It would be some years perhaps before the fight to have womens' contributions recognised would really take off, but it is slumbering here in this novel, ready to rise one day.


The British Transport Film, 'A Day of One's Own' (1956) shows that 10 years later, daily life could still be a drudge for women, and was something that they needed to escape from on occasion. It is of course a soft sell for train and bus travel, suggesting that the women of Britain throw over their chores for once and have a day out. They might visit the countryside or an art gallery - just a bit of time away to revitalise. It is interesting to contemplate the 1950s version of "me time" which involves quite worthy activities. Our modern time out of vanities like getting your nails done or a suntan are unimaginable next to this.

'A Day of One's Own' was still doing the job in the early 00s, it became my own template for escapism when the children were young. Once every 3 months or so I would do the school run as normal but then only pretend to go to work. Secretly I would get on a train and go to a nearby city to look in art galleries and sit in cafes and write. I did this for years and it saved my sanity - not only the mental reset that the day itself gave me, but the looking forward and making secret plans in between. Working mothers of the world - we needed a day out in the 1950s and we need them more than ever now. The type of drudgery has changed but it's still too much a problem. Get on a train and go off for a bit of a rest. 

If you also like 'One Fine Day' then you might like my books, which have been hugely influenced by this work. Click here to visit my bookshelf.


Poetry inspired by a line from 'One Fine Day':


The Day Promised to be Hot

The lid has been lifted from the earth

Drowsy eyed windows trap in shadows 

A cat lays in a privet hedge hole

Its body out long and abandoned

Not heeding the birds that frenzy feed

We all have to breathe while there's still time


Sarah Miller Walters 

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