BLUEINK ReviewA Toynbee to Remember offers unique insight into the First World War ..... through the correspondence of working class East Londoners William and Lizzie Toynbee and their son Stan, a military clerk stationed in Egypt far away from the bloody trenches of combat.
The correspondence begins when Stan volunteers for enlistment, but due to his physical ailments he never sees a battlefield.
Meanwhile Will and Lizzie endure life in London, suffering everything from food shortages and illnesses to Zeppelin raids on civilians. The Toynbee household also experienced its own discord .....
Wills hectic travelling schedule throughout the war (including Union organizer) speaker for the Voluntary Enlistment and War Savings Campaigns ... Lizzies anxiety at her husband and sons illnesses, wartime chaos and raising her two daughters. ..... Travers has a knack for historical prose .... since her writing effectively transforms ..... family history into a lively narration of life during wartime ... the 500 Toynbee letters on which the book is based serve as an exceptional primary source to a conflict that has been culturally dwarfed by World War II. KIRKUS ReviewA Scholarly real-life portrait of an East London working-class family, during and after World War I. ..... Travers very ably places everything in a broader historical context that touches on the still-contemporary problem of equitable distribution of wealth.
This elevates her work above mere memoir and achieves her goal of adding incrementally to the body of British working-class history. William began as a compositor ... but later co-founded a newspaper and eventually rose to elite status in Labour ranks .....
He and Elizabeth were also local organisers of the Brotherhood, a nontraditional church movement .....
During the war Will worked as a paid government orator all over Britain to drum up voluntary enlistment and, later, to promote what was called war savings ..... Happily Travers had the prescience to make copies of the lengthy correspondence .....
The originals, it seems, were burned by order of a new principal at Ruskin College, to which Travers had donated them. CLARION ReviewScholarly and precise exposition lets illuminating family letters take center stage. ..... The book is organised by themes within the letters; voluntary enlistment, the politicks of war, and the wars impact on the home.
This approach is more effective at deriving meaning from the letters than a chronological approach would be. ..... It is true Travers is a historian at heart the book is full of well-researched information that connects the Toynbees lives to the broarder world of their time.
As such, her work will appeal most to others passionate about history or to those who trace their roots to working class England of the 1900s. Joy Travers, born in 1926 in Walthamstow was brought up by her Toynbee grandparents.
Evacuated in 1939-1943 and returning with the school to London, she left with Higher School Certificate.
In 1959 she married Michael Travers whose rare book collection she donated to Sussex University after his death in 1977.
The Collection can be accessed on Internet.
