Dorothy Borutti lives in the beautiful French seaside resort town of Le Touquet, Pas-de-Calais with her British mother and Italian father, and vacations in the south of France each winter. Sandy MacPherson is a young Canadian lawyer, raised on the wide-open prairies of Saskatchewan, Canada in an era of economic, and environmental, ruin. Little do they know that a war will bring them together.
Dorothy, surviving years of privation under German occupation, and a stint in prison for daring to listen to the BBC, has sworn to kiss – really kiss – the first liberator to enter her town. Sandy, stuck in a service battalion for most of the war, seizes his chance to make a bigger contribution to the war effort and follows in support of the D-Day invasion force to France. A chance drive to the French coast throws a beautiful young woman into his arms, and so a family love story is born.
Dorothy and Sandy’s second child, author, journalist and CBC Radio producer, Romie Christie brings to vivid life her parents’ experiences of the Second World War, all the losses and triumphs, the heartache and the joy. It is a story of a solid, middle class Canadian family and an unexpectedly unconventional European one. It is an important story detailing the lives of those who endured the brutal occupation of France and of the young men who fought desperately against it.
Christie’s research is meticulous and deep-delving, drawing upon both her parent’s firsthand accounts – diaries, essays and photographs – as well as newspapers, official documents and histories. It is, though, a work of creative non-fiction, drawing upon her imagination, knowledge, and inspiration to recreate conversations, motives and activities. It is here the book falters a bit; the conversations sometimes feel a bit theatrical.
A window into a turbulent time in Canadian and world history, a story of sacrifice, of loss, and of the triumph and resiliency of love.
I was, personally, not as interested in the post-war family history. All seems sunshine bright as Sandy’s career took the family into a secure, upper middle-class ease, but perhaps that is only what they deserved after the losses of the 1940’s. It touches on, but doesn’t quite explore enough the impact of the war bride phenomenon, of what these young women endured moving to a new country while internalizing the devastation of the war years. Dorothy had a robust support system in friends and Sandy’s family, but even she, it seems, suffered from the separation from all that was familiar. Perhaps, though, that is beyond the scope of this book.
It is, despite this, an eye-opening and important account of those war years from the perspective of the occupied French. It is bigger than “just” a family chronicle or sweet love story. It is a window into a turbulent time in Canadian and world history, a story of sacrifice, of loss, and of the triumph and resiliency of love.
Romie Christie is a retired journalist who produced CBC Radio shows for almost 20 years, bringing hundreds of stories to the airwaves. She provided stories for national CBC current affairs programs including Morningside, As it Happens, Cross Country Check-Up, Sunday Edition, Sounds Like Canada, and The Current. She later worked with the Mental Health Commission of Canada for over a decade to benefit people with lived experience of mental illness. Upon retirement, Romie began digging into her deceased father’s briefcase of essays, learning about his army days and later reflections as a Saskatchewan judge. At the same time, she pulled out her mother’s old suitcase filled with wartime documents from France – where she’d grown up – and pre-war photographs. Romie began weaving her parents’ two stories together into what has become this book. Romie loves nature, laughter, and seeing the magic in the world around her. She resides in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
Publisher: DriverWorks Ink (September 27, 2023
Language: English
Paperback 6”x9” | 224 pages
ISBN-13: 978-1927570-84-5
Heather McBriarty is an author, lecturer and Medical Radiation Technologist based in Saint John, NB. Her love of reading and books began early in life, as did her love of writing, but it was the discovery of old family correspondence that led to her first non-fiction book, Somewhere in Flanders: Letters from the Front,and a passion for the First World War. She has delivered lectures to the Royal Nova Scotia Historical Society, NB Genealogy Society, and Western Front Association (Central Ontario Branch), among others, on the war. Heather’s first novel of the “Great War”, Amid the Splintered Trees, was launched in November 2021.
