We had all thought at one point that the person leaving the notes might be Isobel, and when we found out it was actually Tom after all we did feel that that was a kind of a betrayal on his part, even though, in the strictest sense, it was “the right thing to do”. However, it was mentioned that you could go back even beyond that to the causes of the war which made people hate the Germans so there is a continuum of events and the decisions made at each point influence the future. Everything that was done thereafter was done for good-hearted reasons and might be excused, but this kind of bullying was definitely wrong. We thought that the original wrong-doing was the persecution of Franz which led to him jumping into the boat with the baby. We concluded that there is no right or wrong in this situation and that the whole thing is just very sad. We related that to true-life stories that have been in the news where adopted children are taken from loving families to be given back to their birth parents and how much it upsets everyone when this happens. She was eventually taken from a home and people that she loved and given to a family who, even though they were her blood relatives, she did not know at all. We also discussed what was best for Lucy/Grace. But by not recording the event, he made it clear that he knew it was wrong, which was damning evidence when the truth finally emerged. We then discussed whether it was right to disobey the law and decided that it is sometimes for the best, but we felt that if Tom had recorded what had happened in the book that would have been better, because then whatever happened they could say that they did what they thought best at the time. So, given the circumstances as they presented themselves, we felt we could not blame her for the decision she made. There is no doubt that they had a lot of love to give and if they had reported what had happened and it had transpired that the mother was also dead, Lucy’s life would have been a much less happy one. We felt that Isobel’s decision was influenced by the fact that she had just lost a baby of her own, and also that she had seen the orphanage her friend’s baby had been sent to and knew what would happen if both parents had died and she and Tom didn’t keep the baby. We spent a lot of time discussing whether Tom and Isobel did the right thing in keeping the baby. We liked the style of the writing and found it easy to read.
It was compared to The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, which has been our favourite book so far. Despite this, the discussion was lively and we all enjoyed the lemon cake which Amy brought along!Įverybody enjoyed this book. There were only five people present at this month’s meeting due to a lot of members being on holiday or having other commitments.
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