To Serve Them All My Days

To Serve Them All My Days

Published in 1972, To Serve Them All My Days has been another popular success from the writer R.F. Delderfield, whose novels also include the trilogies A Horseman Riding By and the Swann Saga (God is an Englishman, Theirs Was the Day and Give Us This Day), Diana and Come Home, Charlie and Face Them, a number of which have been filmed for television over the past fifteen years. Delderfield's work belongs to the genre of the Chronicle/historical saga, focusing on the experience of (frequently lower) middle class 'ordinary folk, and the charting of their experiences this century. He is, effectively, a popular chronicler, concerned to articulate 'ordinary experience', and relying also on the reader's own willingness to share in his concepts of popular memory of the recent historical past. One of the ways in which I want to approach his work in this session is to discuss him as a representative of "lower middle class popular novelists", in the line of writers such as H.G. Wells, A.J. Cronin, Warwick Deeping and perhaps ultimately back to Dickens. Such novelists are concerned with the portrayal "ordinary" decent folk, striving to "get on" and become a success, whilst remaining true to themselves and their values. These values include patriotism, decency, integrity, thrift, industriousness, success gained through service, hard work and dilgent application, adherance to the protestant work ethic, etc. I am not suggesting that, in themselves, these values are wrong or to be sneered at, but I do want to suggest that, as a cluster of associated values, they have both a history and a social origin: To Serve Them All My Days seems, to me, to formulate and articulate these values succinctly.
To Serve Them All My Days is the chronicle of a schoolmaster, David Powelett Jones, born into a working class South Wales family, who first teaches at and then becomes the Headmaster of a minor public school. The story focuses on his career, as he joins the school as a shell-shocked casualty of the First World War, and then, in the inter-War years, increasingly serves the school at various times of crisis, becomes Housemaster and then Headmaster. We also see his relationships with three women - Beth, Julia and Christine - but it is the school which comes first! The School, in turn, becomes almost a symbol for England itself, an icon and representative of the finest British values, and an embodiment of Englishness at its best. What the novel offers, I would suggest, is a chronicle of middle class England from the inside, using David's experience as a means of providing a Liberal (as opposed to Socialist or Conservative, although it might still be described as conservative in some respects!) chronicle of the way things were and, in the process, articulating such issues as patriotism, service, endurance, social mobility, knowing one's place whilst remaining true to oneself and one's values.
I'd like you to start examining these issues by working through the following topics, and seeing what your answers are and the ways in which they relate to each other: All page numbers are to the Coronet edition.

PJ. What do you notice about the characterisation of Peter: what are his aspirations, what is his background, what sort of man is he, how does he respond to the various events and crises which life throws him. Look particularly at p 19 (on his 'Celtic' origins: is it significant that he is described in terms of his 'Celtic' background or his nonconformist background?); his reactions to Boyer's fit (p32 and the sequel, p38) his return to Wales (p 52), his reactions to the fire (p120), his reactions to his first wife's death (p164), his involvement in the Winterbourne affair (p154, 170 and 179) etc.

(ii) The School. First introduced on p20, the school very quickly emerges as a symbol of many things: continuity, tradition, Englishness, etc. What kind of school is it? Is it significant that it was established as a school for farmer's boys, and tries to retain an Arnoldian tradition of liberal education and character building. Look at the first description of the school and its therapeutic effects on David (p20 and 46), the remarks (p131 and 220-1, 326, ) on the School as an embodiment of Englishness).

(iii) The women. Three women are significant in the course of the novel, Beth, Julia and Christine. What similarities and contrasts are there between the three women, and how, in their different ways, are they characterised? What does David 'get' or 'need' from each of them, and what do they give him, and the school (note also that in the case of all three women their attitudes to the school, school life and ritual are vitally important for assessing their relationship to David - how is this significant?) Look at 79 (Beth), 240 (Julia) and 296, 455, 468 and 487 (Christine).

(iv) History. One of the characteristic features of the novel is the use of History outside as a mirroring of David's personal history: there are innumerable points in the novel where David's life is assessed in relation to events in the "great World' outside: national recovery (p80), the national strike (p193, the cause of the rift between PJ and Carter), the rise of Fascism and the coming of the second World War. At particular points the narrative is very self-conscious about making these links: look, for example, at pages 294, 347, 379, 463, 498, 516, 531, 545, and particularly p 331. What is the significance of these links between David's life, the life of the school and life outside? Is it being suggested that even such ordinary folks as David are inextricably part of the national spirit, the British national character and destiny?

Responses. Having looked the above, do you feel that the novel does have an "agenda", or is it simply telling an involving life story? Do you feel that readers would naturally and inevitably pick up on these values and respond to them? Do you feel that the novel's reliance on human interest, the sentimentalised portraits of school life, etc. are means of making the novel more involving, or to make the reader more sympathetic to the novel's values and preferences? Is it not, rather, a case of Delderfield aiming for a particular market and reaching it? What, for you, were the factors and ingredients which made the novel 'popular', or might make it popular for others to read?

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