Vera Brittain

And so Wolf writes about, you know, a shell-shocked veteran and Mrs. Dalloway.

But what Vera Brittain does is incredibly unusual, incredibly brave, incredibly hard, which is to say, we were brave and there was value in our courage, even though the government harnessed it to a wrong cause.

Yeah.

And I will not betray my younger self's, the spirit of courage.

Mrs. Rukeyser.

Now, there was no universe in which she ever would have been a Mrs. Rukeyser, right? Because she would have gotten married and changed her surname.

By contrast, Vera Brittain didn't got married.

It was very important to be married.

Yeah.

So your First World War, you know, your sermon that's drawing illustrations, I remember preaching one here about Vera Brittain and the three, you know, the friend, the brother and the fiancé that she lost in the First World War.

That's all about the pointlessness, the sacrifice.

And you don't really get that with the Second World War.

So let's talk about the other major female creative or artist who influenced you in the writing of this book.

And that's an English writer called Vera Brittain.

Tell us about her and what she did during World War I.

Yeah, Vera Brittain wrote, some of you may know Vera Brittain's wonderful memoir, Testament of Youth.

And it's been kind of my Bible for all of the books that I've written.

In particular, the section of Vera Brittain's life that I've been most interested in is her desire to go to Oxford University, which was strong.

And also there were barriers put in her way.

but she did eventually go to Somerville College, and that was significant for Bookbinder of Jericho.