Author: Norman Collins

Publisher: Penguin Modern Classics

First published: 1945

Setting: London, UK
Read in March 2014

My Rating ★★★★  4.2

My Waterstones Review

“Uncle Henry, by a short nose”

At 700+ pages this novel never drifts and it is never dull; it was a delight to read. Punctuated with dead-pan humour it follows the lives of the inhabitants of a South London boarding house against the backdrop of the two year period that straddled the start of WWII. It provides a lesson in characterisation and a window into the social history of the time. There is little to dislike about it; you will leave it smiling and wondering, my favourite character was?

Book Review

In the microcosm of No. 10 Dulcimer Street, Kennington, Norman Collins documents with dead-pan humour the lives of the tenants of a boarding house in the two year period from Christmas 1938. London Belongs to Me is loosely split into seven books of unequal length. 

The first book opens with the retirement of Mr Josser as an account’s clerk from Battlebury’s and his coming to terms with life at home under the feet of Mrs Josser, the matriarch. Doris Josser has started at work and unlike her sibling, Ted, is still living at home. Ted has a good job and is married to Cynthia, an ex-usherette whose life is occupied by Baby. Moving upstairs we have Mrs Boon and her mechanic son Percy, he plays life on the edge. In the attic rooms are Connie Clark, a colourful cloakroom attendant and Mr Puddy, a portly and stammering night watchman. The boarding house is owned by spinster Mrs Vizzard who shares the basement with the pyschic Mr Squales. These are unglamorous lives but observed through our microscope they are certainly interesting lives. The book is punctuated with some wonderful secondary characters including Bill, Mrs Jan Byl, Mr Barks and the eccentric Uncle Henry.

This novel is over 700 pages, it never drifts and it is never dull; it was a delight to read. The focus of attention changes between each book but we never lose touch with any of the principal characters. Living in a closed community their lives must interact with each other, but it is subtle, privacy is maintained between each household. This is an interesting phase in London’s history, war seems inevitable but it does not dominate life, it begins to take effect with the evacuation of Dunkirk (27 May – 4 Jun 1940) and the start of The Blitz on 7 September 1940. Every reader will have a favourite character, by a short nose mine was Uncle Henry.