Juniper's Jungle

‘The whole place seemed completely bonkers: dusty, tatty, disorganized and impossibly old-fashioned, set in an age of doilies and flag-waving patriotism and jam still for tea, some sunny day.’

Will Rachel save The Lady – or sink it?

I watched the Channel 4 documentary about Rachel Johnson taking over the editorship of The Lady so I thought this book could be an interesting read. Before watching the documentary my sole knowledge of the magazine was that one of the porters who ran a Halls of Residence I lived in during my first degree swore by it as the place to find work.

The book’s written in diary form, it begins in June 2009 before Johnson is asked to interview for the post of editor, and goes through to June 2010 (my copy is the hardback version, the subsequent paperback and eBook releases have extra content and go through to early 2011). These diary entries include snippets of emails and letters that she receives and lists of the many and varied items that appear in her in tray.

The book does cover the same ground that the documentary covered, though with far more detail, and it’s with Johnson’s spin rather than the documentary maker’s. Before starting to read the book I knew I needed to put my own personal beliefs and politics to one side or I would more than likely end up wanting to throw the book across the room. Even after this I still found parts of the book difficult going.

Throughout the book my feelings were really mixed, and eventually I worked out why. When Johnson is talking about the job of taking over a magazine, and dealing with challenging staff and external influences my interest level was high. When she was talking about the endless parties and social events she attends, and drops names at a rate of knots my interest was low. I know that the two things do overlap, but I could really have done with less of the high society schmoozing.

One thing I did really love about the book was that each section that covered a month was preceded by a cover of the magazine. These dated back to 1899 and came right up to date, it was fascinating seeing how the covers had evolved over time – some of the older ones are absolutely beautiful.

Whilst this was a fairly interesting read I’m rather glad my version is the shorter one, by the time I got to the end I was definitely ready to finish reading. I’m sure lots of people will love this, but for me it was just okay.

A Diary of The Lady is published in hardback, paperback and eBook by Penguin in the UK.

When Heloise Goodley quit her City job and decided to attend the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, she had no prior military experience. On her arrival she was a complete army novice: she couldn’t fire a rifle; she couldn’t march; she couldn’t shine her boots; she couldn’t even iron her uniform.

An Officer and a Gentlewoman is the first female perspective on Sandhurst and the making of a female British Army Officer.

One of the things on my Things Before 30 list is to read a non-fiction book every month. I’m forever seeing non-fiction books that I think sound interesting but really rubbish at getting round to reading them instead of my usual diet of as much fiction as I can get my hands on. I thought this book sounded really interesting, I come from a family with a lot of ties to the army and an old uni friend went through Sandhurst and is currently serving as an officer in the British Army so I thought I could really enjoy reading it. If nothing else it would give me a bit of an insight into the experience my friend would have had at Sandhurst as he attended at a similar time.

The book does begin with two caveats, one from the Ministry of Defence explaining that since Goodley attended Sandhurst in 2007 a lot of alterations to the process have been made so the experience she had is no longer the same as that of current recruits, and one from the author explaining that it has been necessary to apply some fictional licence in the telling of the story. Whilst I completely understand the need for both of these, I did find that as I was reading I did end up wondering for example which of the characters were entirely fictional.

The book is definitely a very interesting read. The first chapter follows Goodley as she flies out to Afghanistan for the first time, the book then jumps back to when she was working in the City in the banking industry and then follows her making the decision to join the army and then from the third chapter on her year at Sandhurst. I found the descriptions of the Sandhurst experience really interesting. Whilst there were things in there that I’d heard a little about before such as the rigorous room inspections, there was so much I didn’t know – so many times throughout the book I was surprised by the details and extreme nature of some of the rules, regulations and procedures.

The book is also an entertaining read. There were a number of times where I found myself chuckling away at something that Goodley described, as I’m writing this there’s one scene that springs to mind that has had me laughing all over again. At times it is also quite a touching account, there are moments of personal achievement and also of reflection that help to ground the book in its reality.

I’m really glad that I read this book, I don’t know if the author plans to write a follow up at some point about her experiences post Sandhurst but if she does then I’ll definitely be reading it.

An Officer and a Gentlewoman is published in hardback by Constable in the UK. Whilst I was provided with a review copy of the book all of the opinions expressed are my own.