Sublime

5 Now there was a Jew in the citadel of Susa whose name was Mordecai son of Jair son of Shimei son of Kish, a Benjaminite. 6Kish[6] had been carried away from Jerusalem among the captives carried away with King Jeconiah of Judah, whom King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon had carried away. 7Mordecai[7] had brought up Hadassah, that is Esther, his cousin,

Anne wore an old heather mixture tweed suit—it was a good suit, but old enough to have lost its lines and become baggy. With her chestnut brown hair, russet cheeks and heather mixture tweed she looked almost part of the landscape, an appropriate sturdy figure, strong and competent. When Colonel St Cyres saw her, he said, “Thank God.” He always did

It was astonishing, really, the quality of life she was able to lead in that crippled body,

But Mrs Baker wasn’t a knitter. Her needle skills were focussed on damage limitation: mending, reattaching, strengthening.

“She had a great gift of finding out people’s interests and drawing them out.”

My instinct was always to hoard it—Betsie was growing so very weak! But others were ill as well. It was hard to say no to eyes that burned with fever, hands that shook with chill. I tried to save it for the very weakest—but even these soon numbered fifteen, twenty, twenty-five. .

Earl Gerald,

Comparing the latter chapters of It Was Different to the pages of Holden’s unpublished diary, we can retrace her steps as she lifted out paragraphs and moved around, edited, pruned, and adjusted sentences originally written at the time of the experiences described. Some of the most powerful Blitz scenes in her private diary serve double duty, appea