A Dinner of Herbs, by Catherine Cookson

 

Better a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith. ~ Proverbs 15:17

I’ve fancied reading a Catherine Cookson book for quite some time, but have never seemed to get round to it. But, having spotted one at a market for a mere £1, I decided to finally give one a try.

Short of purchasing a lottery ticket, there is no better way I could have spent said pound.  A Dinner of Herbs is also known as the Bannaman Saga, and saga is perhaps a better description of it.

Stretching over almost sixty years and four generations, A Dinner of Herbs tells the story of Roddy Greenbank, Hal Roystan and Mary Ellen Lee, whose pasts, presents and futures are forever inexorably linked with the cursed Bannaman family.

But in this blog the attention is on the women, and the brazen ones at that. Having no knowledge of Catherine Cookson books, aside from vague memories of television adaptations, I was doubtful of whether it would provide me with anything to write about. Happily, I could not have been more wrong.

Set in North East England (my part of the woods – the familiar dialect was particularly enjoyable to read) in the 1800s, all of the women centre around Mary Ellen. Her rebellious spirit shines through from when we’re first introduced to her as a child. Defiant of her parents’ attempts to curb her into a more ladylike manner, Mary Ellen still has this spirit 600 pages and 50 years later.

Aged ten, she goes into service as a housemaid for a rich family. Although the family is fond of her, she is worked hard, with her mistress given to showing a spiteful streak. We pick up with her again as a young woman; one passionately in love with her young playmate, Roddy.

Several times he spurns her advances, but she ploughs valiantly on; she puts up with his often cruel jibes, she prevents him from being transported to Australia for murder, and eventually she seduces him on a moor, just prior to him leaving to seek his fortune in the big cities of Newcastle and London.

Left pregnant by this night, Mary Ellen contemplates life married to her mistress’ kind-but-dull grandson, seeing it as a way out of her predicament. However, enraged by the looks of disgust plastered on the family’s faces when they discover her pregnancy, Mary Ellen tells them what they can do with their job and their grandson, and returns home to her father’s house.

More disappointment is in store for her as her father finds the stigma of his daughter having a child out of wedlock too shameful to allow her to move back in with him. By now distraught, Mary Ellen flees to Kate Makepeace, the old wise woman who had raised Roddy as her own since his father was brutally murdered by a Bannaman.

Kate takes Mary Ellen in, and it is Kate who hardens Mary Ellen’s resolve to defy the world. Kate begins teaching Mary Ellen the tricks of the medicine trade in which Kate practises, and insists Mary Ellen always charges for whatever remedy she is providing, therefore ensuring Mary Ellen can live independently without having man or having to resort to prostitution, the career path a lot of desperate women fell into.

Kate insists Mary Ellen isn’t to cry about her fate, but instead is to hold her head high and look the world in the face of its disapproval. Mary Ellen does, and so the candle of leading brazen woman is passed from Kate to Mary Ellen.

And then the book jumps ahead again, hurtling through the decades till Mary Ellen is middle aged. It is revealed she married Hal Roystan, her and Roddy’s old friend. Mary Ellen’s baby daughter, named Kate in honour of old Kate Makepeace, is now a grown woman in her twenties. Mary Ellen has several other children, but it is Kate and her second daughter, Maggie, who we shall turn to next.

Despite both having very much inherited their mother’s attitude, the girls are as different as sisters can be. Kate, plain looking but charming and kind, runs opposite to the beautiful but sharp tongued and spiteful Maggie. However, their fates are almost identical; and both fates require a good dose of brazenness. Kate, on one random ride through the countryside, meets Benjamin Hamilton. It is revealed, eventually, that Mr Hamilton is the grandson of Mr Bannaman, the man who murdered both Hal and Roddy’s fathers; and the son of Mary Bannaman, the woman who almost tortured Hal to death. Despite knowing that her relationship with him will never be acceptable to her father, step father, or mother, Kate announces she is in love with him and intends to marry him, even if that means turning her back on the rest of her family.

Similarly, Maggie falls in love with a worker on her father’s farm, Willie. Her parents are unhappy with this union due them considering Willie a lower class than Maggie, despite both Kate and Hal coming from poor, underprivileged backgrounds (something they rather snobbishly forget as they begin their climb up the financial ladder).  Like Kate, Maggie tells her parents she will be marrying Willie, regardless of their opinions on the matter. Mary Ellen, by this time left with a crippled husband and no children remaining in her house, begs Maggie not to leave her, even promising her beloved farm and house to Maggie and Willie if they remain with her. Maggie agrees, shocked at how broken her mother seems. But still, on the final page Mary Ellen recovers her old spirit and warns them to make sure they also have their own land and house, just in case…

Kate Makepeace, Mary Ellen Lee, Kate Roystan and Maggie Roystan. Four women who all oppose convention in their own unique ways. Flawed, selfish, naïve, loyal and headstrong, Cookson’s book is littered with examples of strong female women, acting in a way considered brazen, yet unrepentant and convinced that their own actions are the right ones.

I am told Cookson based a lot of these women on those she grew up surrounded by. So therefore, stay tuned for a Catherine Cookson biography coming soon!