A Chelsea Concerto

Take off your coat said the doctor. I took it off. And your dress he said. Its too dangerous - the folds may catch in the debris and bring the whole thing down. I took off the dress. Fine he said shortly. Itll have to be head first. Well hold your thighs. Go down and see if its possible to give an injection. Can you grip the torch with your teeth?Frances Faviell lived in Chelsea before and during the London Blitz having became a Red Cross volunteer when World War II began. Chelsea was particularly heavily bombed and the author was often in the heart of the action witnessing or involved in fascinating and horrific events through 1940 and 1941. Her memoir evokes an unforgettable cast Londoners and refugees alike caught up together in extraordinarily dangerous times - not forgetting the Green Cat a Chinese statuette standing on the authors window sill as the homes talismanic protector.Frances Faviells memoir is powerful in its blend of humour tenderness and horror including the most haunting ending of any wartime memoir. A Chelsea Concerto is reprinted now for the first time since 1959 with a new introduction by Virginia Nicholson.Irresistible reading. There could be no more graphic account of what one first-aid worker and her small party witnessed and did during the London Blitz ... while characters are sketched in with a novelists art the impression left is one of stark truth. Birmingham PostI am so happy that A Chelsea Concerto is back in print. It is a gem of a book one of the best personal memoirs of WW2 on the home front written with an artists eye for detail and immediacy. Kate Atkinson