In the foreword of the reprinting of Mrs. Tim of the Regiment, author D. E. Stevenson says the book came about in the 1930s when a friend’s daughter was about to marry an officer in the Highland Regiment. The family wondered what military life would be like. Stevenson lent them her diary from her days as a young military wife. The friend returned it, saying her family had laughed heartily over it, and if she “pepped it up a bit,” she could publish it as a novel.

So Stevenson did expand and “pep up” the story. Two volumes that were originally published were combined as one in Mrs. Tim of the Regiment. Three more volumes followed over the next few years.

The book is written in a journal format, Mrs. Tim, or Hester, having received a new diary for Christmas. Her husband is an officer and they have two children, Brian and Betty. Although they have a cook, a governess, and a few servants, they talk all the time about how financially strapped they are.

The first part of the book doesn’t actually have a plot per se. It’s more a recording of Hester’s encounters with friends, run-ins with servants, and happenings with her children. In the second half (which was originally a separate book), Hester and her daughter, Betty, spend two weeks with a friend on holiday in Scotland.

At the center of it all is Hester’s wry observations and likeable personality. As a senior officer’s wife, she visits the other wives and children to encourage them. She’s not timid, but has a hard time standing up to her cook and others.

On interviewing a headmistress of a school for her daughter, and saying that Betty’s governess found her very quick, Hester is told, “Quickness is more often than not a sign of of a superficial brain.” Hester writes, “I relapse into a species of jelly but still have sufficient strength to say that I think she will find Betty is a good child and very reasonable.”

One of my favorite sentences in the book: “The oldest antiquity whose beard is quite white–or was, previous to the tomato soup–pricks up his ears.”

Sometimes Stevenson waxes poetic, especially when describing scenery:

The rolling hills give place to mountains which stand back in sullen splendor and allow us pass. The cattle become sheep, snowy lambs with black wobbly legs and cheeky little  black faces interrupt their breakfast to stare at the train. Streams leap down the hillsides among the rocks and dive beneath the wheels to emerge on the other side in beds of gravel and yellow stones.

Of course, I don’t expect secular authors to have Christian values, but I still like to see how they think and write about spiritual things. There’s mention of an occasional prayer and going to church, with comments like, “The singing was good but the sermon was dull.” One “hellfire” type of sermon seems to have shaken Hester, but is brushed off by the other church members.

There are a few “damns” and occasionally a gossipy, negative attitude towards some people. One family friend seems to fall in love with Hester, though she is too “hedged with innocence” to realize it. (One thing I found odd about those times was that it was thought wrong for a woman to go around by herself, but no one had a problem with a married woman and single man going off to have picnics or visits sites alone together.) 

I found the book mildly amusing. I didn’t like it quite as well as I did the Barbara Buncle books and Amberwell and it sequel, Summerhills. Those earlier books had a homey feel about them, somewhat in tone like Little Women or Anne of Green Gables (though written in a different style and era). I didn’t get quite that same feeling until near the end of this book.

I listened to the audiobook narrated by Christine Rendel. I’ll listen to the next book in the series, since I have it free via Audible‘s “Plus catalog,” then decide whether to read the other Mrs. Tim books.