The Avenue By RF Delderfield

Some of my favourite books by Delderfield are the 2 Avenue novels, which are set in South London, in the years before and during the Second World War. Delderfield spent some years in Croydon, as a boy and wanted to write something about the suburbs, about ordinary working or lower middle class people, rather than the upper class. The first book starts at the end of World War One. James Carver has been in the army for 4 years, and is a married man with 7 children, including 2 sets of twins. He is a working man but has never followed a steady trade so he's worried about getting a job when he comes home from the war. He is also angry at the four years of blood letting and feels that only socialist reform will put an end ot war and poverty. He comes back determined to work for the Labour cause. However, his wife has just died having caught Spanish flu after giving birth to two daughters. His eldest daughter, Louise is keeping house and his eldest son, Archie is working as a shop assistant. Jim is surprised that the family have moved to South London, to the Avenue, as it is a better area than they had lived in before, but with so many children he can see that they need a roomier house. He gets a job as a porter but finds it harder than he expected to get steady employment, and he has so many children to support. Louise is needed to keep house and look after the smaller children. He spends most of his spare time working for the labour movement... However, Archie is very different and withing a few years, he and James are barely speaking to each other. Archie is selfish, often dishonest about money and determined to set up his own business, and he thinks his father's idealism is ridiculous. Another family in the Avenue are the Godbeers. Harold is a managing clerk for a firm of solicitors and a conservative member of the middle classes. He has married Eunice, an officer's widow who has a son and a modest income of her own...Eunice is silly but sweet natured and Harold, who is shy and has been very lonely, adores her. She has a son, Esme who is the same age as Jim's twin boys, Bernaard and Boxer, and they go to the same school. Esme is clever and does well at school. They are far from clever and always in mild trouble.. when they leave school, the Carver boys become motor cyclists who do displays, and Esme tries to become a writer. Archie makes a marriage of convenience with an Italian girl, and sets up a chain of corner shops. Jim feels disgusted when his son takes the side of the Government during the General Strike and relations become even frostier.