A Wartime Holiday

From Slide Rule, the autobiography of Nevil Shute

In the autumn of 1915 my father took advantage of a break clause in the lease to give up South Hill, the house at Blackrock. I think he was concerned at the rising cost of everything due to the war and the mounting income tax, which was to rise to the unprecedented figure of six shillings in the pound.

I think, too, he felt that the house held so many memories of Fred for my mother and myself that it would be better to get rid of it and start again. What he did seems curious now in these days of total war, because for the Christmas holidays he took my mother and myself on a trip to Rome and Naples.

Wars were localized in those days, when the range of aircraft was small and bombing far behind the lines was not a serious menace. The Western Front was ablaze with war from Switzerland to the sea but this war was completely static; there was nothing to prevent the normal express trains full of tourists from running as usual fifty miles behind the lines, and no currency restrictions then impeded foreign travel.

One might have thought that the turmoil of war would have prevented my father from leaving his work to take his annual allowance of six weeks' leave, but it didn't. He was a very conscientious man who would never have put his personal interests above the job...

Rome was full of officers in magnificent uniforms frequently with sky-blue flowing cloaks; the Italians in those days believed in getting some fun out of a war. Naples and Capri followed. My parents prolonged their leisurely holiday so that I had to travel back to Shrewsbury alone from Naples, an interesting and stimulating experience for a sixteen-year-old boy who spoke virtually no Italian and only schoolroom French.

I think this journey did me a lot of good; although I had to change trains unexpectedly two or three times i had no real difficulties; when I got back to school I found that very few boys had made a journey of that length through wartime Europe. I think my parents showed a good deal of insight and wisdom in pushing me off on it.

posted by Justin on 07.29.07 at 01:32 PM





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