Euston is a small village in Suffolk, about two miles south of Thetford. The War Memorial is a Celtic style cross in a green area by the side of the A1088.

Dedications and names. Sadly the names were obscured by the wreaths but they can be found here:-

Penguin, 2013, 269 p.

I realised at the end of this after seeing the publisher’s blurb at the back that this is a sequel (of sorts) to a previous Barker novel, Life Class, which features some of the same characters.

The main focus here is on Elinor Brooke, who in childhood formed a very close relationship with her brother Toby, on his part chiefly because she was a kind of replacement for his dead twin. In 1912, Elinor gets a place at The Slade Art School and while studying there she meets Kit Neville and Paul Tarrant who will both be important to the novel’s plot.

The Great War is the pivot of the story (as it was for all of those who matured in time for its trajectory to direct their lives.) Toby, Kit and Paul all join up and Elinor sends time worrying about them all – but especially Toby, even though in its early stages she and Paul had become lovers. His enlistment put a wedge between them, though, and their communications become sparse.

Most of the tale is seen from Elinor’s viewpoint, including various of her diary entries, but increasingly scenes begin to relate more of Paul’s experiences.

Elinor’s fears are confirmed when the telegram arrives with the news that Toby is “Missing. Believed Killed.” The parcel containing Toby’s effects, smelling as it does of the stench of the trenches, is an added trauma. Her parents withdraw into themselves and Elinor begins to fixate on whether Toby is really dead and if so how it happened. She moves into Toby’s room (thus giving Barker her title: and a metaphor for Elinor’s retreat into denial.)

When Paul is wounded Elinor is reluctant to visit but as she wants him to contact Kit, who was in Toby’s regiment, she eventually does so. Kit himself suffers a horrific facial wound and is sent to a surgical hospital for treatment. When Elinor visits him he refuses to give any detail about Toby’s death but while there she encounters her old art tutor Professor Tonks who enlists her to help draw the progression of facial reconstructions as successive surgeries take place on the patients.

Barker has of course previously examined the Great War in her “Regeneration” trilogy. Her writing is immersive and her knowledge of the time lends this tale a great wealth of incidental detail. Another Slade contemporary, Catherine, has German ancestry. She and her family suffer the ostracism enemy aliens – even those born in the UK – were subjected to at the time. The horrors and exigencies of life in the trenches are shown matter-of-factly but unflinchingly. The psychology of it all is convincing enough and Kit’s memories of Toby as eventually related to Paul reveal him to be somewhat different from Elinor’s impression of him, not treating the men as kindly as he should have, a foreshadowing of the revelation about the way in which Toby died.

This is vintage Barker. She rarely disappoints.

Pedant’s corner:- “the whole place must have shook” (must have shaken.) “Somewhere near by” (Somewhere nearby,) “that’s one less to worry about” (one fewer,) putties (puttees – used later,) “a cluster of white-coated doctors and nurses were supervising the unloading of the wounded” (a cluster … was supervising,) “coming up the steep lane that lead from the Embankment” (that led from,) “oblivious of the city” (oblivious to the city.)

Travelling south from Oxborough through Norfolk I spotted this at the junction of the A1035 and A 135. A pillar surmounted by a crucifix on a square base:-

Reverse view. Names for West Tofts and Cranwich:-

The main inscription is to the Lynford Estate:-

Names for Mundford, West Tofts and Cranwich:-

Oxborough village is near to Oxburgh Hall. Its main building is the Church of St John the Evangelist. The church is partially ruined. (See the farther end below):-

Roofless part of the church:-

Opposite view. The part of the church still in use lies through the door:-

A model of how the church once looked can be found inside the intact part of the building:-

Ornate carvings inside Church:-

The War Memorial to the Great War dead of the Oxburgh Estate is in a niche on an outer wall of the church:-

Retford’s War Memorial stands in the Market Square and takes the form of an Eleanor Cross.

Inscription:-

Names, Great War above, World War 2 below with WW2 dedication:-

Names

More names:-

Areas/towns fought over:-

Great War dedication:-

Korean War name:-

Crosses and wreaths:-

Donation and presentation plaques:-

Information board by Memorial:-

Several gravestones in Edinburgh’s Dean Cemetery contain dedications to those who died on active service.

Anthony Norman, Lothians and Border Horse, killed in action 20/2/1943, aged 29:-

David S C Turnbull, Lt. Black Watch and Royal Flying Corps, 1/4/1917:-

Harry Youmger, killed at St Valery, 19/6/1941, aged 41 and Laurence Younger, fell in action, Tunisia, 1943:-

Oswald Stanley Brown, 2nd Lt, 1st Black Watch, killed in action in France 22/12/1915:-

Just behind Keith War Memorial, a little further up the small hill on which it stands, is a memorial to the 6th Battalion Gordon Highlanders, a figure of a kilted soldier with rifle at the ready:-

Dedications:-

The battalion’s battle honours are listed on either side of the memorial:-

Keith is a town in the former Banffshire, now a part of Moray, about eight miles south-east of Fochabers. Its War Memorial is a sarcophagus-like cenotaph in the grand municipal style just off the main A 96 road through the town:-

Great War dedication and names:-

Second World War names and dedications are to either side on the walls behind the earlier memorial stone:-

On a piece of grass to the side is a stone laid in memory of the dead of other conflicts:-

Fochabers is a village in the parish of Bellie in Moray, just off the A 96 road which acts as its bypass. It’s about ten miles east of Elgin.

Its War Memorial is a stone column in a triangle of land in front of the entrance gate to Gordon Castle.

Great War dedication, “To the men of the parish of Bellie.”:-

Great War names:-

Second World War Roll of Honour, Fochabers District:-

Lossiemouth is a town in Moray, situated where the River Lossie enters the Moray Firth. It’s about six miles north of Elgin.

It has an unusual wall mounted Memorial, hard by the River Lossie just before it reaches the Moray Firth. On Pitgaveny Street.

Dedications and names:-

The Memorial is surmounted by a figure of Victory and Peace:-