The Fortnight in September
Certain reads drip with comfort and charm; they transport readers in time and place to a setting that delights the senses. One such read is R. C. Sherriff’s The Fortnight in September (1931). This quintessentially British novel tells the story of one family’s annual holiday (yes, in September) to the seaside town of Bognor Regis. Mr. and Mrs. Stevens began the yearly journey on the honeymoon many years before, and have returned every year in September as their family grew and their children aged. Now, Dick, their eldest, has left school and started into working life. Their middle child, Mary is young and restless as adolescence blends into young adulthood. Young Ernie clings to childhood as earnestnessly as he carries around his toy yacht. This family could be any family of ordinary, middle-class Brits; they contemplate success and failure, love and disillusionment like anyone. It is during their fortnight holiday in September, however, that they reconnect with each other and themselves. The annual trip to Bognor provides the pause needed for self-reflection that can lead to epiphany. Fortnight in September , then, celebrates the transformative importance of an annual holiday.
This is a gentle read; a quiet classic to be sure. It exudes with humor alongside those uncomfortable moments all of us can recognize. Existential crisis lingers among all the characters—even young Ernie, as he shifts his allegiance from one vocation to another. Mr. Stevens and Dick grapple with disillusionment, disappointment, and the fear of being unimpressive. Likewise, Mary faces the dilemma of coming-of-age, falling in love, and maintaining her integrity. Mrs. Stevens, on the other hand, leans into the solitude and respite she enjoys during holiday. All the Stevens family come to Bognor in the frenzy we all know at the onset of a holiday and leave more whole, even if only slightly so.
Perhaps unsurprising for a novel written in the first half of the twentieth century by a man, I found Sherriff’s female characters rather flat, particularly in contrast to Dick and Mr. Stevens. And yet, I adored them all. I wanted more for Mary and Mrs. Stevens than they seemed to want for themselves. I wanted Mrs. Stevens to proudly, unapologetically raise her port glass each evening to herself as she rests her tired middle-aged feet on an ottoman. I wanted Mary to see herself as more than a love object, more than the spiffiness of her overcoat. Then again, I am reading from the vantage of the twenty-first century. If I were to climb into a time machine set for the 1930s, I would no doubt feel the same about many women I encountered. But lest I misconstrue, I thoroughly enjoyed The Fortnight in September, and in no way lay an anachronistic condemnation at R. C. Sherriff’s feet for his treatment of the Stevens women.
If you enjoy a good holiday (or vacation as we in the States call it) yourself, you will love the many reflections upon the process of going on a trip included in The Fortnight in September. You will fall in love with the Stevens family for their kindness and their understatedness. You will travel, via armchair, to the 1930s British seaside town of Bognor. But best of all, you will leave this novel with the same sense of rejuvenation that any perfect holiday provides. In other words, this is a book well worth the read.
Bibliography:
Sherriff, R. C. The Fortnight in September. Scribner: 2021.
A Few Great Passages:
“He liked the flowing country to form the background of his thoughts” (63).
“They had reached the strange, disturbing little moment that comes in every holiday: the moment when suddenly the tense excitement of the journey collapses and fizzles out, and you are left, vaguely wondering what you are going to do, and how you are going to start. With a touch of panic you wonder whether the holiday, after all, is only ta dull anti-climax to the journey” (100).
“But over all lay a spirit of joyful, unrestrained freedom. There were no servants – no masters: no clerks – no managers – just men and women whose common profession was Holidaymaker. Round pegs resting sore places that had chafed against the sides of tight square holes – and pegs that had altered their shape, through softness or sheer willpower, so that they felt no aching places on their sides” (111).
“But on holiday it is the reversing of normal habits that does one so much good” (128).
“[H}e knew that time only moved evenly upon the hands of clocks: to men it can linger and almost stop dead, race on, leap chasms, and linger again. He knew, with a little sadness, that it always made up its distance in the end. Today it had traveled gropingly, like an engine in a fog, but now, with each passing hour of the holiday it would gather speed, and the days would flash by like little wayside stations. In a fortnight he would be sitting in this room on the last evening, thinking how the first night of the holiday seemed like yesterday—full of regrets at wasted time . . . .
But it was foolish to think of it like that: far better think in hours and minutes—hundreds of hours—thousands of minutes, each packed tightly with interested of its own” (133).
“To build meant courage: deep faith in yourself—rugged strength in conception—the gentlest touch in detail—magnificent mountains of stone rose out of the inspiration of a solitary brain—and stood for all time to inspire unborn distant eyes” (176).
“The golden hours of life leave no sharp outlines to which the memory can cling: no spoken words remain—not even little gestures and thoughts: only a deep gratitude that lingers on impervious to time” (223).
“It was good to have a home that called you: a home that made you feel a little unhappy when you went up to sleep in a strange bed on this first night away—that lay restfully in the background of your holiday, then called you again when it was time to return” (283-84).
