White Boots

by Noel Streatfeild

  “But she couldn’t be well in time, not with the highest temperature in the world.”

  Nana went back to her knitting.

  “I shouldn’t wonder, funny things temperatures. Now you stop fretting and it’ll all be Sir Garnet. You’ll see.”

  Olivia had been shocked to hear of Lalla’s faint, and came round as quickly as possible. Although she had to keep her promise to Dr Phillipson and not tell Lalla that Harriet wasn’t ill at all, she couldn’t let her go on worrying.

  “Harriet’s better, pet.”

  “Oh good! Will you tell her I’m awfully sorry. I didn’t mean what I said, at least I did then, but I don’t any more, and please tell her she can do her inter-silver test if she’s well in time, do you think she will be?”

  “I shouldn’t wonder.” Olivia took off her coat and gloves and sat down. “Suppose you tell me all about it.” Not by a flick of an eyelash did Olivia let Lalla know she already knew the story. She wanted to hear it again, for only that way could she help Lalla. At the end she asked: “Why did you mind about the photograph? You’ve had so many taken.”

  Lalla pleated her eiderdown while she tried to explain.

  “It wasn’t the photograph… it was those loops I told you about… I hoped I couldn’t do them because I’d outgrown my strength, like you said, but it wasn’t that…”

  “What was it?”

  Lalla struggled with herself. It was what she had never admitted and had never meant to admit.

  “I just couldn’t do them. They were too difficult.”

  Olivia jumped up and kissed her.

  “Bless you, my pet, I’ve been longing to hear you say that.”

  Lalla wriggled away.

  “Why?”

  “Don’t be cross. I don’t know anything about skating; you may be the great skater of the future, I don’t know, but since that matinée we went to together I do know you’re worrying too much about it. Miss Goldthorpe tells me you’re not to skate for a while, and I think it very good news. You might find it isn’t the only thing you want to do.”

  Lalla threw her chin into the air.

  “I won’t. You see, I’ve got to be something important and how else would I be except skating?”

  Olivia put on her coat.

  “I must get back to Harriet. I don’t know, but I have an idea that if, for a little, you would stop thinking about being a skating champion, you might find out that it wasn’t so important as you thought.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  THE FUTURE

  AUNT CLAUDIA RENTED a cottage on a lonely part of the south-east coast, and into it moved Lalla, Harriet, Miss Goldthorpe and Nana. The doctor said there were to be very few lessons for Lalla, so sitting-round-the-table lessons only happened on wet days, and on fine days she and Harriet went about doing just what they liked, wearing hardly any clothes, and getting browner and browner every day. Every night Lalla went to sleep the moment her head touched the pillow, and she did not wake until Nana came in and drew back her curtains. She ate the most enormous amount of food, including all the things Aunt Claudia had said made a person fat, and although she got fatter nobody cared.

  “Anyway,” Lalla said, “I don’t go on getting fatter. I just got fatter to start with and now I’ve stuck that size.”

  Harriet too had an enormous appetite but she remained thin, and nobody minded that either.

  “You’re that kind, dear,” Nana said. “You won’t fatten not if you ate forty meals a day.”

  To begin with Harriet was told to try not to talk about skating to Lalla, but that soon wore off, for Lalla would talk about it. She had not watched Harriet when she had passed her inter-silver test, but she loved teasing her and showing her how she must have looked taking it. She would pull down the corners of her mouth.

  “Watch me, Harriet. This is you waiting to begin. Now this is you doing your back change. Here’s you doing your threes. This is your one foot eight. And this is you trying not to show how much you want to look at your tracings.”

  Lalla was funny enough imitating skating on ice, but with bare feet on wet sand she was so silly that Harriet would laugh so much that it hurt, and then Lalla would laugh too, and they would have to lie down or they would have fallen over.

  But as she got better and gayer Lalla began to think. Not the frightened dashing from side to side thinking, but sensible thinking, and what she thought came out in things she said to Harriet.

  “I shan’t try for my inter-gold until Max says I’m ready…Down here where Aunt Claudia isn’t I see it’s silly to rush, and get in a state…I don’t think even working hard from September I’ll get those loathsome change loops right this year. I don’t care a bit if I wait till May…” Then suddenly one morning she said: “Harriet, d’you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to write to Uncle David, at his office so Aunt Claudia won’t know I’ve written, and get him to see Max and ask him when he thinks I’ll be ready to take the inter-gold. I’d rather know than not know. If Max says not till May, Uncle David can tell Aunt Claudia for me while they’re in Canada in August. Canada’s a gloriously long way off, I wouldn’t know what she was saying and I wouldn’t care.”

  There was no answer for quite a while to Lalla’s letter to Uncle David, except a postcard saying “OK, poppet”. Then suddenly he telephoned. Lalla answered the phone; they could tell by her excited squeaks something nice was going to happen.

  “All of them! What fun! Lucky them, I wish we could. In the car! Giggerty-geggerty, I must tell Harriet, I can’t wait.”

  It was wonderful news. Uncle David had taken rooms near the cottage for Olivia and George for a week, and for himself for a night. For the boys a tent was coming and they were camping in it all of August. Uncle David was bringing the Johnsons by car.

  A week later they all arrived. At first there was such a lot to say that it seemed they would never catch up with each other’s news. Over the tent putting-up, at which Lalla and Harriet helped, Alec told of the wonderful thing that had happened to him. Mr Pulton had seen George and said he would like to send Alec to an agricultural college, and when he had finished training he would invest some money in a market garden. He had said that he would like to help make somebody else’s dream come true, because it was too late now to find his own.

  “And I’ll tell you one reason why he said that,” said Toby, “it’s because Alec took him some of our strawberries. My word, Lalla, they’ve been stupendous. Simpson’s been marvellous, he’s picked them for us every day and had them ready when Edward and I went to fetch them.”

  Harriet was terribly pleased about Alec.

  “That’ll mean more chances for you, Toby, you can go somewhere like Oxford and be a professor at mathematics, for Alec won’t cost anything.”

  Edward was knocking in a tent peg. At this he stopped and looked in a pained way at Harriet.

  “There is me. I shan’t go to a university because by then I’ll be a film star…”

  The rest of what Edward had to say was lost. They all fell on him and rolled him in the sand.

  That night it was fine. They had supper on the beach. While it was being cooked Lalla and Uncle David went for a walk. Lalla, in spite of trying not to care, felt wormish inside.

  “What did Max say?”

  Uncle David lit a cigarette.

  “There’s no thought of you going in for that test you were working for until next year.”

  Lalla was frightened to ask, but she made herself.

  “Did he say anything else?”

  Uncle David took her hand.

  “Prepare yourself for a shock, poppet. He doesn’t see you as a world champion. He says you’ll never be a good enough figure skater.”

  Lalla stopped. Her eyes were frightened.

  “But I couldn’t just be ordinary, I’m not used to it.”

  Uncle David laughed.

  “You won’t be. We’ve got ideas, that Max of yours and I. Anyway there’s nothing for you to worry about. Y
ou go back to your skating as usual in the autumn.”

  Lalla could hear Uncle David was happy about her.

  “Tell me what you and Max have thought of, I can feel it’s something nice.”

  “There’s something else first which you’ve got to know. It’s about Harriet. Max thinks she’s a find.”

  Lalla gasped.

  “Harriet! Do you mean it might be her who’s a champion grim, and not me?”

  “Might. It’s too early yet to say. But don’t think that means you’re out of the picture. You’re not. You’ll like Max Lindblom’s idea for you.”

  Lalla was impatient.

  “Well, why don’t you tell me what it is?”

  “I’ve got your Aunt Claudia to talk round. You know, it’s been tough on her not being allowed to discuss skating with you.”

  “But I ought to know, it’s my future.”

  “Don’t take that tone with me, young woman, or I’ll drop you in the sea. Now listen. How would you like to be a professional skater?”

  When Lalla and Uncle David got back to the picnic, supper was almost cooked. Olivia and Nana were tasting some soup they were boiling over a fire of driftwood.

  “There you are, Lalla,” George called out. “Harriet says you’ll give us an imitation of her on the ice.”

  Lalla was delighted, she felt so gay, just in the mood to make people laugh. An audience again! It made her tingle as if it was Christmas Eve. She ran on to the sand and not only imitated Harriet, but Max, a fat judge trying to keep warm, and Mr Matthews nearly falling over as he presented a bouquet. She had a perfect audience; everybody laughed until they could not laugh any more.

  “You must stop, Lalla darling,” said Olivia, drying her eyes, “or I shall upset the soup.”

  Lalla knelt by Olivia and looked at the soup.

  “I wish that was a witches’ brew, and you could see things that are going to happen. Uncle David says he’s told you Harriet’s more likely to be a champion grim than me.”

  Edward peered into the soup.

  “See that bubble. That’s you, Lalla, getting awfully important.”

  Uncle David had a look at the bubble.

  “I shouldn’t wonder. I can see Lalla as a professional. She’s got what it takes, and she can be funny too. The world is short of funny queens of the ice.”

  Edward gave a squeak.

  “Look at that piece of carrot that’s come to the top. That’s Harriet skating with one leg stuck out behind her.”

  Olivia gave the piece of carrot a little push.

  “My Harriet skating to the stars, I can’t see that happening.”

  Lalla looked in the soup.

  “I can. I expect Aunt Claudia will help.”

  Harriet could hardly believe all she had heard. Max thought she might make a star skater! Lalla not minding!

  “I feel curiouser and curiouser, nearly twelve, which is old enough to start proper training, and perhaps something gorgeous is going to happen.”

  Lalla felt mad-doggish with gayness. A professional! She would have to be able to do all the figures of course, but after that, free skating for ever and ever, and an audience to watch her do it.

  “Giggerty-geggerty, I can’t wait. Imagine if that soup could show the future. Don’t you all want to know what happens to Harriet and me? Because I do.”

  More Than a Story

  Postscript by William Streatfield

  I am Noel Streatfeild’s nephew, and in 1951, when White Boots was first published, I would have been in my teens. I have a photograph of Noel at about that time, looking very striking and vigorous, wearing a splendid black hat decorated with two large feathers. Noel always wore striking clothes. I remember that ten years later, at my sister’s wedding, she wore a hat with even LARGER feathers, but this time they were arranged to stick out sideways, sweeping an arc around her in the rather crowded pews of our local church!

  At the time that White Boots was written, most things were still in short supply after the war. Rationing was only just ending, everyone still had two ration books, one for food and one for clothes. Clothes like Lalla’s and the wonderful pink sugared cakes at her tea parties were rare treats to be drooled over. I personally can associate better with the food that Uncle William sent. We ourselves lived in the country, and relied heavily on rabbits to eat which my father and I used to shoot.

  The first time I read White Boots was many years ago, but after all these years, the same excitement is still there. Wondering what is going to happen next, indignation at injustice, a warm feeling when things go right, and yes, still a lump in my throat when someone does something out of the ordinary in kindness or bravery that changes events. Noel liked forthright characters, and there are plenty of them in White Boots. Aunt Claudia of course, and Lalla – indeed all the children in their different ways. There are Nana and Miss Goldthorpe, working away to achieve their ends by using what means they had at their disposal. And I must say I love the influence of Mr Pulton – I’m not ashamed to say that he brings a lump to my throat when he tells young Alec to “stick to your dreams”.

  What is the secret of creating such emotions in the reader? Noel would have said that the characters in the book have to be ones for whom the reader cares. She used to say that the most difficult part of writing a book was planning the characters and the plot. She liked to get under the skins of her characters, and live with them in her mind for some months before she started writing. Who were the characters going to be? How were they going to behave and react to different circumstances? And what were going to be the twists to the story along the way?

  Noel once told me that she developed her own way of working as an author early on. When she started writing, she found that she was constantly being interrupted by her many friends who thought her “fair game” to call on as she was at home rather than working in an office. So she devised the strategy of working while sitting up in bed in the morning, making notes or dictating. That put paid to unwanted visitors.

  I still have in my possession the original notes that Noel made when she was planning White Boots. It is a bit of a rarity to have the original workings of an author before they write a book, so we are lucky. The notes are in Noel’s handwriting, which was quite tidy, but there are lots of crossings out, which you would expect. After all, this was the stage at which Noel was jotting down her ideas, and improving on them as she went along.

  I have known several people who find it easier to dictate rather than write, as it helps the words to come out more naturally as they would be spoken. In Noel’s case, there would probably have been an added bonus, in that spelling was never her strong point! So Noel would have dictated from these rough outline notes to her secretary, June, who was sometimes in Noel’s flat when I went to visit.

  The first page of notes is a family tree for Harriet, going back to Grandfather Johnson and showing the ages of the children. It is followed next by the family tree for Lalla. On the next page is a synopsis of the Johnson family, their house, the rotten vegetables, the shop. Then follows a pen portrait of all the characters, starting with George: “Hopeless at business and puts accounts on dirty scraps of paper”. All the characters are thought out in advance: Dr Phillipson, the rink manager Mr Matthews and his duodenal ulcer, Mr Pulton, Nana, Miss Goldthorpe, Sam the skate-hire man with only one leg. It was typical of Noel to leave none of her characters to chance.

  Accuracy was very important to Noel, as you can see from her note: “Query. Price of skates and boots second hand for child of 9, also entrance to rink”. Not being a skater herself, she did once tell me that she spent hours and hours on her knees poring over tracings to understand clearly what it was all about. “Bitterly cold it was too,” she said.

  Noel also learnt all the skating moves through endless watching at ice rinks. As a result, she knew exactly what was involved in the skating tests – the brackets, the dreaded loops, the edges and jumps.

  Interestingly, Noel in her original notes calls
Harriet “Joanna”. Why she changed the name, goodness knows. Joanna is the name of my younger sister, so perhaps her name came to mind at the start. Joanna had very fair hair, so maybe as the plot developed Noel felt that the hair certainly wouldn’t have been right and the character was a more Harrietish sort of person.

  Happy reading – and skating!

  William Streatfeild

  Did you know?

  Noel’s full name is Mary Noel Streatfeild

  White Boots was published under the title Skating Shoes in the U.S.

  Noel wrote Magic and the Magician, a biography of the children’s author E. Nesbit who was one of her favourite childhood authors

  In 1939 Noel won the Carnegie gold medal for The Circus is Coming

  The National Portrait Gallery, London, holds seventeen portraits of Noel Streatfeild. Go to www.npg.org.uk to view a selection of them

  Noel also wrote several short stories that were about or included the characters from White Boots: The Skaters, Ordinary Me and Skating to the Stars

  During World War One Noel Streatfield worked in a munitions factory at the Woolwich Arsenal

  Noel first began writing for adults, and never intended to write children’s books

  Noel volunteered as an air raid warden during World War Two

  Noel Streatfeild’s books were a childhood favourite of J. K. Rowling and also Jacqueline Wilson

  In 1983 Noel received the Order of the British Empire

  Noel has six brothers and sisters

  Skating Firsts

  Ice-dancing as an Olympic discipline was first seen in 1976.