What every woman wants

I decided to transcribe this story in September 2002, after finding the typewritten manuscript stored away in the Lindsay family chest. In the preceding years I had never taken the trouble to decipher properly the 148 odd pages of typescript, but then I decided it would make a grand Christmas present for the family.
Mildred Ethel Lindsay must have written this story soon after the Great War maybe starting about 1919 and completing it in 1921. The telling of the tale evokes a strong atmosphere of the lives of a section of south English society just recovering from the ravages of war. Mildred drew on her own feelings and experiences as her husband John Seymour Lindsay DCM was sixteen months in the front line trenches, and wounded at the Second Battle of Ypres. She knew full well the emotional stress of uncertainty. But the story revolves around familiarity - with a country parsonage in Devon and life in a London flat. The story therefore feels very autobiographical.
She wrote this story possibly for publication, possibly for future generations of the family. The manuscript bears three titles: 'What every woman wants', 'Mother' and 'Jill' and is 33,000 words in length. I think it is only appropriate to dedicate my work on this to Mildred's daughter Margaret, or 'Bumper Moose' as she is affectionately known, and to John and Pippa her grandchildren.

Dettagli