The Best of Intentions

Caroline Scott

THE First World War remains one of the most devastating conflicts in human history and its painful legacies, and the many social changes it ushered in, continued to impact on the lives of millions of people for decades after the guns fell silent in 1918.

Historian and highly acclaimed author Caroline Scott – writer of haunting novels like The Photographer of the Lost and When I Come Home Again – returns to this pivotal post-war period for a delightful and atmospheric novel which focuses on the ways in which creative, bohemian communities banded together to forge what they hoped would be a better, kinder and more optimistic future.

Inspired by one of these real-life ‘utopian’ communities – Dartington Hall in Devon, opened in 1925 as a model co-operative community by wealthy couple Dorothy and Leonard Elmhurst – Lancashire-born Scott (pictured below) explores a social experiment of the Twenties and Thirties which sought to find practical solutions to stimulate positive change. And The Best of Intentions proves to be a beautiful tale of love and friendship set in 1932, brimming with nostalgia, bucolic charm and larger-than-life characters, and serving as a reminder of how this ‘lost’ generation regrouped and reimagined society to heal their ‘wounds’… even as war clouds once again gathered on the horizon.

In December of 1932, young and ambitious Lancashire-born gardener Robert Bardsley arrives at Anderby Hall, a neglected Elizabethan manor house in the Gloucestershire countryside which is now home to Greenfields, a community of artists and idealists.

Robert tries not to dwell on the reason for his abrupt departure from his last job in Yorkshire or the fact that his letter of reference isn’t all that it would appear to be. Fortunately, he has no trouble in convincing his new employer, Gwendoline Fitzgerald, Anderby’s flamboyant American owner, that he is just the man to restore the house’s once famous rose and topiary garden.

The Greenfields community, Robert learns, includes artists, sculptors, wood and textile workers, poets and musicians who all contribute to a trust and share the advantages and responsibilities of running the estate so that they can work collaboratively and ‘live as vividly and fully as possible.’ 

Before long Robert has settled into his tiny cottage on the estate and befriended the other residents, including colourful, dog-loving neighbour Trudie who makes a formidable Corpse Reviver cocktail and keeps her late-fiancé’s ashes on the mantelpiece, and composer Daniel who is still recovering from the horrors of the Great War and now writing an epic choral piece which he hopes will one day be performed in Ypres.

The only person Robert can’t win over is Anderby’s estate schoolteacher, Faye Faulkner, who thinks employing a gardener is ‘a mistake’ and believes the plan to charge people entry to the restored gardens is wrong. But despite her misgivings, Faye cannot help noticing that the handsome northerner has eyes ‘the blue of wild violets’ and finds him totally and perfectly vexing… Just as Robert starts to feel at home, the horrified residents discover that the old orchard has been sold to a property developer who has plans for an estate of mock Tudor bungalows. Can they find a way to keep their creative community alive or will the new housing development put an end to the spirit of Greenfields?

Written with her signature lyricism and a piercing insight into a period of history that she has made her own, Scott’s warm, funny and affectionate story of an experimental community learning to live, love and stay true to themselves under the banner of ‘community, creativity, equality and education’ is infused with an uplifting sense of hope and new beginnings. As old ideas and traditions inevitably clash with the new needs and imperatives of a society looking to turn the page of history and prepare for the future, the struggles and challenges of a self-created ‘paradise’ become a battleground in which the unscrupulous could tear apart the whole edifice of Anderby’s shared endeavour.

At the centre of the drama is an exquisitely portrayed cast of unconventional characters drawn together by the rewards of working for the common good, and finding hope, inspiration and nurture in revitalising the famous gardens of a picturesque country house.

It’s a story of resilience and determination with a powerful sense of time and place, soaked in the atmospherics of old England and given added enchantment by the sights and scents of a garden full of spring and summer blooms. But it’s also a place where their dreams of a new, kinder society are disrupted and threatened by the harsh realities of modernisation, a shocking betrayal and an ever-changing world. Brilliantly researched, written with stunning authenticity, and seasoned with a heartwarming romance and the northern wit that never fails to bewitch Scott’s readers, The Best of Intentions is a sparkling summer treat ideally imbibed with a glass of vino in a shady corner of your own garden!
(Simon & Schuster, paperback, £9.99)