Introduction "I hadn''t seemed to realise the war before." writes ''Pauline'' of watching the ''Durham Boys'' marching away to the Front line in France. They were a British regiment that had been stationed in her hometown of Dunfermline since the outbreak of the war. Prior to this event on 20th September 1914, the war that she writes of in her letters to her younger brother has seemed a distant thing, the only impact being the influx of soldiers who have made life rather jolly. She doesn''t yet know that her brother has already enlisted and is on his way over to join the fray. This news is contained in his next, long-awaited letter from his home in Canada and from that moment on everything changes. Letters from the Little Blue Room is a collection of letters from the Home Front written between 1914 and mid-1916, that was published anonymously in 1917 by the controversial publisher Charles Daniel of C. W.

Daniel Ltd. He was a pacifist whose wartime publications saw him twice prosecuted, and once, imprisoned, under the Defence of the Realm Act. Indeed, the writer''s sentiments concerning the war reflect those of her publisher. ''Pauline'' makes her anti-war feelings clear in her letters to her brother, but in a tempered way that also enables her to sympathise with the men in the trenches while offering advice, moral support and an often light-hearted commentary on the events of her domestic world. ''Pauline'' was in fact Margaret Thomson, known to her family as Daisy and her brother was James Bruce Thomson, seven years her junior. The family had moved from New York back to Scotland when Daisy was five years old. Her letters appear to offer an intricate real time experience of the first two years of the war. They are detailed, very personal and highly literary.

The early letters adopt much of the romantic, chivalric language that was commonplace in the press and the poetry of the early days of the war. There is much talk of ''glory'', ''honour'' and ''thrills'', which was how the war was pitched to a British society that had not experienced a conflict so close to home in more than fifty years. Few people understood the technological realities of modern warfare in 1914. It took a little while for this language to be understood as obsolete. As the war gradually envelopes her society, Daisy also begins to incorporate military language and metaphor into her writing, even in everyday stories such as descriptions of the weather. All of the letters are peppered with literary quotations, most often poetry, to support her ideas, illustrating the reader as well as the writer behind the pen, alongside the cultural importance of literature for her generation. They offer a microcosmic version of Home Front life, enabling both the recipient and the reader to immerse themselves in her world. The central relationship of the book is that between Daisy and her brother, almost always addressed as Boy.

As Vera Brittain noted in her 1933 memoir, Testament of Youth, ''However deep our devotion may be to parents, or to children, it is our contemporaries alone with whom understanding is instinctive and entire.''[i] This is reinforced in Daisy''s writing. Her mother is a shadowy figure in the background of the narrative. The Boy is always present and at the forefront. Her sister Sidney and her brother Teddy are also powerful presences throughout, even when they are absent from her daily life. In recounting tales of their interactions to the Boy, Daisy develops a companionate voice, presenting one half of a dialogue with a spectral figure, who she encourages, contradicts and sometimes reprimands, over the course of the correspondence. Letters from home to soldiers in the First World War were often lost, for obvious reasons. Keeping hold of possessions in the trenches presented clear challenges.

A collection this complete and this detailed is of enormous value. Daisy''s letters are filled with other characters too. Her relationship with the puppy she inherits from Teddy when he goes off to war, the quirkily named Pilot Me, is often laugh out loud funny. So too, is the little girl, Bettetina, who Daisy ends up adopting. Many soldiers come and go as the months pass, and some, like the youthful Pride of the British Army, leave a lasting impression. And the Blue Room itself is a constant character. Clearly a space in which the siblings have grown up and one of great sentimental value to them all, it too changes and develops with the war. One corner is decorated with memorabilia of all the soldiers who have passed through the house, despite the pacifist leanings of the room''s primary occupier.

"I shall always write to you from here," ''Pauline'' reassures the Boy as he leaves, so he too can reimagine himself in this safe space. But the deeper into this correspondence the reader delves, the more these letters begin to appear as something else altogether. Very quickly it feels like reading a collection of linked stories. As we get to know the characters that populate them, so we begin to visualise the writer herself, the nurturing older sister who is also a passionate feminist as well as a confirmed pacifist. Published a year after the date of the last letter, there was plenty of time to revise and rethink each missive. The narrative is crafted in the way of a novel. Towards the end the story of the letters begins to diverge from the factual record with a startling impact, alerting the reader to the literary nature of many of the earlier episodes. Is this fiction then, rather than the non-fictional personal record that it appears to be? Or is it creative non-fiction, that cunning blend of both resulting in ''true stories well told''.

[ii] Or perhaps true stories, imaginatively told might be a better description. However we define it, Letters from the Little Blue Room is a compelling read. Finally, rightfully credited here, Daisy Thomson Gigg creates a voice as alive and open, fresh and engaged as when she sat at the little round table, beneath the red-shaded lamp more than a century ago, writing to her Boy, determined to keep his spirits up and remind him of home. Her Scottish identity resonates in every sentence, her political idealism, compassion and love shine out even on her darkest days. Hers represents a new and unique voice and an important addition to the canon of literature of the First World War. There is more to tell of Daisy, James and their family, and it''s a very good tale, which you''ll find at the close of this edition. First let Daisy Thomson Gigg lead you into these crucial years of world history, as recorded by ''Pauline''. - Angela K.

Smith [i] Vera Brittain, Testament of Youth, London: Virago, 1992 [1933], p. 445. [ii] As defined by Creative Nonfiction, creativenonfiction.org, [accessed 25 January 2024].