A Mink Coat in St Neots

Description

This story, intriguingly told by Liz Hodgkinson, is set in a world which no longer exists, searching for a woman whose origins were shrouded in mystery. St Neots in the colourless post-war world of the early 1950s was a place where nothing interesting might be expected to happen. It was dominated by a rigid social hierarchy, a culture of entitlement and deference where you knew your place and the importance of respect and etiquette.

Into this rigid world came the character of Pauline, rumoured to be a Russian princess and respectably married as Mrs Dennistoun-Sword. She was, however, ‘hiding in plain sight’: her past and her origins were not what they seemed, but rather vaguely obscure, covered in protective ambiguities. She behaved grandly, drove erratically, and lived scandalously, through affairs and divorce. She was a bolter.

Liz Hodgkinson came to know Pauline and the mink coat in childhood, from the ‘princesses’ visits to her mother’s flower shop, where she made a lasting impression on the young girl. The more Liz learnt of Pauline’s background the greater the mystery became, until finally and forensically, many years later, the truth was revealed.

In telling this story Liz Hodgkinson is also telling the story of a vanished society, where ‘Everybody… could be placed to within a
millimetre of their social class’. It is also the story of how she, personally, broke out of that world, and left without a backward glance.