The Hopeful Traveller

A Time of War told the story of a group of Wrens on a West Country airfield, but now the war is over, the girls are dispersed, and must learn to endure the rigours of the early post-war years, as well as the boredoms and perplexities of civilian life. While Kerren takes a job as a librarian and tries to forget her husband, who was killed in the war, her friend, Robin, has married a kind, conventional lawyer and lives in Cheltenham. But the lives of these two are still, though more remotely, linked; their reunions with other men and women from the old Station, and Kerren's efforts to adapt herself to a life far less sheltered than her wartime one, provide both comedy and some near-tragedy. Mary Hocking drew on her own experiences as an ex-Wren to trace the changes of emotional temperature, the disillusionment and the challenges, the need to realize new ways of life and the necessity to re-create themselves, experienced by her characters in this wonderful novel.