September 17: Interview with author Amanda West Lewis

*citation below

With the 75th anniversary of the sinking of the S. S. City of Benares coming this September 17,  I reviewed yesterday September 17,  Ottawa author Amanda West Lewis' fictionalized account of its sinking.   Her book tells the story of three British children who find themselves on the requisitioned ship which was transporting ninety child evacuees to the safety of Canada.  Sadly, after secretly embarking from the shores of war-ravaged England, the S. S. City of Benares was torpedoed by a German U-boat on the night of September 17, 1940. Only thirteen children survived.

Amanda West Lewis began to research the incident after encountering a photograph at “The Children’s War” exhibit in London’s Imperial War Museum. Becoming inspired by the stories of the photographed children, she realized that this was a piece of history which had to be told.

Amanda West Lewis has graciously agreed to answer a number of questions for CanLit for LittleCanadians to share a bit more about her book and to help remember the tragedy of the S. S. City of Benares.

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HK: The disaster that occurred on September 17 was all the more poignant because the victims included child evacuees who were being sent to Canada to keep them safe during war.  What did you learn in your research about families who chose to evacuate  their children?

AWL:  It was a heartbreaking time for families. All parents want their children to be safe and healthy. But with little food, and bombs falling nightly, parents feared for their children’s survival. Many women who could afford to leave the cities went with their children to stay with relatives in the countryside. But people with low incomes had fewer choices. People in safe parts of the country offered to take in children. Over one million kids went to stay in farms in Wales. Then people overseas offered to take children in, and the government created the CORB plan. It was a risk, but people knew that the future lay in the survival of the children.

What a terrible dilemma it must have been: choose to keep your children with you in a war zone, or send them away to be raised by strangers in safety. The parents who chose to send their children away did so because they thought it was best. It was terribly painful, but they thought it was the only way to save their children’s lives. The colonies – Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa – were far away from the conflict and were seen as perhaps the only opportunity for a good life for the children.

I think about parents in Syria today, and in other war torn countries. If someone said, “We can take your children to safety”, I’m sure they would jump at the chance, even if it meant being separated. Parents want their children to survive, no matter the cost.



HK:  While being evacuated was a traumatic experience for some of your characters, say little John Snoad, others seemed to see it as an adventure, Terry even stating, “Who knew that war was going to be such fun?” (pg. 71)  What do you think affected how children perceived the process?

AWL:  I think a lot of it depended on the age of the child. Adolescents are ready for separation from their parents. We now know that the teenage brain is hard wired for risk taking and adventure, and this was the biggest adventure of their lives. I don’t think it is unusual for teenagers to have seen this as an opportunity. The teens were catapulted into young adulthood, with all of the fun and few of the responsibilities.

For younger children, it was different of course. Some children, like John Snoad, didn’t want any kind of separation from their families. John was clearly a boy who didn’t want to be away for even a night. Others, like Joyce Keeley, were homesick but able to be distracted by caring adults. She and the other 5 year olds weren’t aware of the time scale. A little child doesn’t understand the concept of going away for years. She had no inkling of the monumental change that was happening in her life. It was only later that the younger children began to realize that they weren’t going home.

I think it might have been hardest for the kids who were in the middle, the seven to eleven year olds. As adults, these evacuee children have talked about their sense of responsibility. They believed that they had to be strong for their parents. They felt guilty if they were sad. It was an enormous burden on that generation.

HK:  The children in your story encounter a number of crew and others significant to their experiences: Signalman Mayhew, Commodore Mackinnon, Cadets Haffner and Critchley, Rev. King, Miss Annie Ryan the stewardess.  Which of these were real people and which were based on real people?

AWL:  All of those characters were real people. They all had their part to play in the story. As much as possible, I tried to bring to life elements of their personality that I could glean from my research. Obviously I couldn’t track all of their movements, so what I have done is to construct a fiction based on what we know of their lives.



HK:  If anything speaks to the power of story-telling, it is Auntie Mary’s ability to keep the children’s attention by telling them a story in installments as they wait for their lifeboat to be rescued.  Did this actually happen and was it the story you tell in September 17?

AWL:  Yes it really happened. Everyone remembers Mary Cornish telling the boys Bulldog Drummond stories. I don’t know which ones she might have used as a base, but I read several of them in order to do the research and they all have pretty much the same formula. I imagined that Auntie Mary wouldn’t have known any of the stories very well. After all, she was a single woman, a music teacher, and probably not well versed in books for boys. But everyone knew of the Bulldog Drummond stories, so I allowed myself to weave bits and pieces together, fused with some of my own story telling. I tried to imagine Mary struggling to come up with exciting story lines. I think that as she became increasingly disoriented, her story telling probably became quite surreal.



HK:  Much wiritng has been done about disasters and those who’ve survived them and those who did not.  Why do you think these stories are so compelling for young readers?

AWL:  That’s a really good question. Obviously as I was writing the book I was thinking about how young readers are fascinated by Titanic stories. I think it has to do with an innate desire for risk and adventure. People have a physical response when they read. It’s not dissimilar to actually living through the events, and it turns out that we all like to have our adrenaline stimulated! It makes us feel alive.

I think that young people can read the book and put themselves into the story. They can be excited and scared in the safety of an armchair. And I hope they can be moved by how each character deals with survival and loss.

HK:  If there is an image you keep from the diaster as told in September 17 (not a photograph that you saw), what is it?

AWL:  There are three images that stay in my mind all of the time. They’re based in fact, but I have augmented reality to give a moment of recognition to a couple of the children who didn’t survive.

One image is of Connie Grimmond on the deck with her brothers and sisters. Everyone who survived talked about Connie and how wonderful she was with her siblings. They were a working class family and very, very poor, but Connie was a wonderful “little mother” and made sure that her sisters and brothers were clean and well mannered. I’ve invented a moment for her on the deck holding them, with her arms around them in all of the chaos. I’d like to think she was able to do that in her last moments before getting on the lifeboat. She went down with Lifeboat #8.

Another image is of Joyce Keeley. It is hard not to love Joyce. I have given her a moment with Bess when the torpedo first hits. Later Sonya sees a small child on the deck, holding a large teddy bear. That’s Joyce. I imagined her alone, and bewildered, but with her teddy.

But the lasting image is entirely true and not fictionalized. It’s the image of Ken Sparks waving his shirt so that the pilot could see Lifeboat 12. When I read Ken’s story, I knew that I wanted people to know about him. I think he must have been one of those remarkable thirteen-year-old boys who have an amazing zest for living. I would have loved to have met him.

Sincere gratitude to author Amanda West Lewis for answering my questions 

and to publicist Winston Stilwell for arranging this interview and 

providing a review copy of September 17.

Thank you

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* Images retrieved from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2112768/Torpedoed-clutched-teddies-The-harrowing-story-Nazis-sunk-ship-carrying-90-children-Blitz-America.html and http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/sep/15/benares-sunk-war-81-children-dead  on September 7, 2015.

September 17

by Amanda West Lewis

Red Deer Press

978-0-88995-507-3

313 pp.

Ages 12+

2013

Every disaster is heart-breaking: for the fears endured, the injuries incurred, the lives lost, the memories wrought.  But imagine a disaster that involves the loss of children’s lives and specifically children whose families had chosen to send them away to safety, a safety never realized.  The heart-break is beyond imagination.

Such is the premise upon which Ottawa author Amanda West Lewis has based her novel September 17.  The story recounts the torpedoing on September 17, 1940 of the S. S. City of Benares, a ship transporting child evacuees from war-torn England to the safety of North America.  Sadly that ship never arrives on our shores.

Though September 17 is told in third person narration, it focuses on the experiences of three specific children:  Bess Walder, 14; Ken Sparks, 13; and Sonia Bech, 11.  Although they will all face the same disaster, their stories are very different.

Bess and Ken are only two of the 90 child evacuees–some frightened, some eager, some with siblings, many alone–aboard the S. S. City of Benares.  Bess Walder is eager to go have an adventure in Canada and resume her education–war does tend to send schooling off track– and perhaps even get a university degree so she may pursue teaching after the war.  Not surprising she suggests to her parents that she and her younger brother Louis be evacuated courtesy of the Children’s Overseas Reception Board (CORB),  hopeful of staying with their mother’s aunt in Winnipeg.

Ken Sparks of London, also has a sense of adventure, determined to be a war correspondent, and wearing his father’s far-too-large but good overcoat, he sets off, destined for Edmonton.

In addition to the evacuees and their chaperones, there are other guests aboard, including the three Bech children who are travelling with their mother to stay with cousins in Montreal.  

While the child evacuees are amazed by the food offered to them and the opportunities for play and activities such as drawing, they never forget the dangers explicit to their travels.  Before they leave dock on September 13, the harbour is swept for mines, and there are extensive drills involving kapok vests and lifeboats.  The ship itself is part of an 18-ship convoy  three miles wide which provides protection but also slows down their progress.  

By the time September 17 rolls around, the S. S. City of Benares,  believed to be in neutral waters and safe, is without its accompanying destroyer and corvette escorts. And at 10:03 p.m., the first explosion, a torpedo from a German U-boat, hits. By 10:33 p.m., the ship is almost vertical. While some make it into lifeboats–though not necessarily as practised–others end up on wooden rafts and many people, including Bess, find themselves in the water.

The fates of the children, evacuees and not, and all aboard the S. S. City of Benares is revealed by Amanda West Lewis with clarity and feeling, allowing readers to understand the tragedy from multiple perspectives.  Since the numbers are staggering –77 of 90 child evacuees died, as did 6 of 10 escorts, 51 of 91 paying passengers and 23 of 49 crew–the sinking of the S. S. City of Benares is an overwhelming tragedy.  The few miracles, and there truly are several, will astound readers and provide the sliver of hope that not all was lost.  

It is an astonishing story and one that Amanda West Lewis tells extraordinarily well.  It is alive and arresting, sharing as many perspectives as possible, while providing deeper looks into the genuine experiences of several children.  We learn what they anticipated, what they feared, what they endured, and what happened to them.  It is an extraordinary glimpse into a perhaps neglected part of World War II history, and one that needs to be commemorated all the more on September 17 with September 17 the book.

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Check back tomorrow when I will post a Q & A with author Amanda West Lewis about her book September 17 and about the tragedy that garnered her attention and pen.

Bear on the Homefront

by Stephanie Innes and Harry Endrulat

Illustrated by Brian Deines

Pajama Press

978-1-927485-13-2

32 pp.

Ages 5+

September 1, 2014
For sale August 19, 2014

Anyone who minimizes the value of a toy during stressful times needs to read Bear on the Homefront, as well as its prequel A Bear in War (Stephanie Innes et al., 2009), not to mention the recently reviewed Soldier Doll.  In fact, any object that can lend emotional support to both children and adults during times of war is more than a toy–it's a treasure. 

Teddy Bear, CWM 20040015-001
Image from http://www.warmuseum.ca/
cwm/exhibitions/guerre/
children-war-e.aspx

This little teddy bear had its simple beginnings as a good luck charm and keepsake that Aileen Rogers sent her father Lt. Lawrence Browning Rogers in 1916 when he was fighting in France.  Though her father did not return home, Teddy did, having been found in her father's jacket when he died at Passchendaele.

Now Aileen Rogers is grown up and a nurse, contributing to efforts in World War II to keep British children safe by evacuating them to Canada. The story is told by Teddy who is Aileen's keepsake now, speaking to her from the pocket of her uniform, as she accompanies children across the ocean and then to find their way to their transport and chaperones.  

Upon their arrival at Halifax, Aileen introduces herself to two of the smallest children, Grace and her five-year-old brother William, who look lost and afraid. To reassure small William, Aileen lets Teddy keep him company as they begin their train journey to Winnipeg.  Unlike many children who seem to enjoy the freedom and adventure of their travels, Grace and William quietly endure the experience, worrying about their future home.  Not surprisingly, upon their arrival and introduction to Mr. and Mrs. Dent, whose farm they would stay at, William is reluctant to leave.  But Aileen compassionately bestows Teddy on the little boy, instructing him to take good care of the children.

Fortunately, there is a happy ending for all, though five years of war keeps them separated from those they love.  Inspired by events recounted in Aileen Rogers' diary, Bear on the Homefront takes Teddy out of the war zone but still working to comfort those impacted by war. And by giving Teddy a voice, Stephanie Innes (the great niece of Aileen Rogers) and Harry Endrulat have endeared the little bear with even more heart than his simple form may suggest.  His longing for Aileen and his honest reflections are not dissimilar to the children's own, though they all recognize the value in perseverance, even if it is difficult.  

The text and atmospheric oil on canvas illustrations of Brian Deines lend an authenticity to the memories held within Bear on the Homefront.  Teddy has an important story to tell, and his voice and demeanour are appropriately not the cutesy, anthropomorphized bear of so many upbeat picture books, though the book's message is heartening. For his heroic efforts in comforting and giving voice to others when their own words and thoughts probably failed them, Teddy is now safe and treasured at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa.  So, Bear at the Homefront gives us one more happy ending from a time when there weren't many.