The Last Telegram: Can their love survive the hardships of war?

This was chosen at our July 2015 Book Club, as it was reckoned to be a lighter, easier read than we normally choose, to accommodate the more relaxed mood of the summer holidays. Liz Trenow writes about the manufacture of silk with authority, it was her own family's business.Ultimately a worthwhile and satisfying story that may spark a little cry, a few tears toward the end, ‘The Last Telegram’ really stands out from the raft of plucky women working their way through WWII tales, because of the warp and weft, the unusual constantly running back story, interwoven with unexpectedly real and sympathetically presented information regarding the silk industry in the forties. Quotations at the beginning of each chapter come for a book 'written' by the head of the silk factory, Harold Verner, father of Lily and John, who are the next generation.Foremost a family drama, reminiscent of so many other books that unpeel the hidden wartime histories of women, now grandmothers, who got up to all sorts unimaginable to their offspring. Concealed and never spoken of alliances, temptations, falls from grace, heavy loads of guilt are legion. Feelings that could not be acknowledged then are accepted without judgement today. A whole new world that we may take for granted now but which caused such anguish less than a lifetime ago. Of course people in the old one had the same emotions and attractions to cope with.Lily wants to work, preferably in an office. She quickly becomes caught up in her father’s world of silk production despite her initial disinterest. At the factory she meets Gwen who teaches her, and becomes her mainstay for a great part of the time; Stephan, whom Lily has organised her father into helping after his arrival as an alien, a destitute Jewish young man from Germany. Tragedies and absences follow, each one poignant, scarring but regenerative.Pages of almost clichéd scene setting – bombing raids, prejudice, whirlwind war time relationships, women’s new roles in wartime, domestic life for a well off middle class family; are all picked apart when an elderly Lily confides in her grand daughter, who is about to make a parachute jump for charity. This unleashes the stream of her pressed down memory and sets in action a journey of re discovery, settling of long debts and healing corrections of imagined or real mistakes. There are moments of great sweetness too which delight and cheer.

This was a delightful story of youthful innocence changing and growing into a more mature acceptance of the realities of life. A maturity forged through the privations and heartache of war and all that it entails. Lily has much to deal with, firstly as a young woman who fell in love with boy who arrived in this country via the Kindertransport - in the earlier stages of the war that love is not allowed and there is always someone to interfere and cause mischief which means that they have to part. Later the separation is more definite when Stefan is rounded up as an enemy alien. When the time comes that she must take over the running of the family business of silk weaving, she will need great resolution and strength to step into the role, especially given that all her peers in the industry are men who automatically assume any woman amongst them is either a secretary of a tea lady. Lily has to make decisions which will affect the lives (and quite possibly deaths) of many people, not just the staff in her mill, but pilots, and other members of the armed forces. Can she trust herself to get it right every time?The technicalities and history of silk weaving is given in clear detail with wonderful descriptions of the effects of silk on the senses, not just visual, but the sounds and smells are also wonderfully described.By the end of the book we know that Lily has had a happy life, but that she has carried regrets with her throughout. Can she lay her ghosts to rest before her life ends? Even in her eighties, can she find happiness and forgiveness? Ultimately her chance at peace is down to her granddaughter.This was a wonderful book, which, although set in a time of sadness and hardship, evokes hope. I was longing for Stefan to return so that he and Lily could pick up where the war forced them to leave off, and create a family together. It wasn't a long read, I demolished it in a few hours and wished there was more to it as I didn't want to leave Lily and her family behind. The poignancy of reading this story in June, just after watching the commemorations of the 70th anniversary of D-Day is not lost on me. The book is yet another reminder of everything which that date means.

I have a real passion for historic fiction particularly set during World War Two. My sister suggested this book as she knows the novelist personally. I thought I give it a go and I wasn't disappointed.Lily Verner the main protagonist has to grow up quickly with War looming over the horizon whilst battling her desires to be an independent woman with a career in the Forties against working in her Father's silk factory, unheard of in those times.What I particularly loved was the story telling. How Trenow weaved (pardon the pun), from the present back to the Forties and then back to the present again very subtly. Intergrated into the narrative are subjects of prejudice, bullying, desire, poverty and discrimination at times hidden and blatant in one's face.I actually felt for the characters and pictured them in my heard, particularly the love story between Lily and Stefan and another love story that isn't spoken about publicly.Trenow certainly knows her subjects particularly on silk. I didn't have any knowledge about it but found Trenow's facts on this really valuable and it helped with the backstory of the Verners and how they came to be.I highly recommend this book and I sincerely hope to read many more of Trenow's future work.