Springcleaning Book 21 – “A Traveller in Time” by Alison Uttley

A Traveller in Time by Alison Uttley is a children’s book originally published in 1939. I received it as part of my book Advent Calendar in 2023 and you can read my first impressions of it here. It is difficult for me to work out exactly what age group the book is aimed at but as there are illustrations in the text I would assume about 10 to 14 years old. I have read a lot of classic children’s books but never this one and despite some reservations I thought that I would give it a go.

This is a timeslip story. Penelope lives in what was the present day when the book was written. She and her siblings are sent to the countryside in Derbyshire to live for a while with a great-aunt and when they are there Penelope discovers that she can travel back to the 1580s when the farm was owned and inhabited by the Babington family, who were well known Catholics. At this time Mary, Queen of Scots was imprisoned at Sheffield Castle and the Babington family, particularly Anthony, want to rescue her and set her up as the “true” queen of England. Penelope gets to know the family during her time with them and especially Francis who is the younger son. She is torn by her affection for the Babingtons and her knowledge of Mary’s fate.

I was worried that the book would twist history but it doesn’t do so, although Mary is presented as a romantic heroine but seen as such through the eyes of those loyal to her. I thought that the trips into the past were well done and the author created both the “present” and the past very well. As the time that the book treats as the present is now approaching one hundred years ago it is also interesting to see what the author thought was normal at the time – for example, her family are apparently poor but they have a servant ! One of the themes of the book is continuity and contrast between the two eras and this is particularly well done. The author obviously knows the area and its landscape very well and her love of it is evident in the descriptions of the wildlife, wild flowers and the environment.

I enjoyed this book, even though I am not in its target age group, and I think that I would have enjoyed it when I was much younger. I found it very touching without being over sentimental and thought that the more gruesome aspects of Mary’s time in captivity were well handled and cleverly avoided. I do think that to enjoy it fully you need a working knowledge of what happened to Mary, the Babington Plot and Mary’s time in captivity which I certainly didn’t learn at school in the 1970s but which was probably taught more in the 1930s when the book was written.

I shall pass this book on. It is showing its age a bit and is slightly stained so I shall take it to the Sainsbury’s book table in the hope that it will find someone new who is interested in the story.