A bundle from Britain /

At age 15, Horne said good-bye to Ropley Manor and became one of many "bundles" sent to live in the U.S. by British parents concerned for their children's safety during World War II. A respected writer and historian, Horne directs his observant gaze on an eccentric clan of titled relations, servants, and family friends (who figured prominently in his early life), revealing a distinctly awkward, solitary childhood after the death of his mother. And at the very heart of his memoir, Horne fondly recalls his American sojourn and his schooling at Millbrook with the likes of William F. Buckley Jr. It is an appealing reminiscence of historical significance, punctuated by Horne's exprience of culture shock and tempered by the changing environment, both before and after the U.S. entered the war. ~--Alice Joyce

Horne ( Macmillan: 1957 - 1986 ) was evacuated to the U.S. at the outbreak of WW II, when he was 14. In this occasionally witty but anticlimactic memoir, he describes the three years (1940-1943) he spent living with John and Rossy Cutler and their family, of Ganison, N.Y. No Highlanders could be ``more fiercely clannish'' than these Yankees, he writes of his hosts, who generously cared for and educated their ``bundle from Britain.'' Drawing on scrapbooks left by his mother Auriol--who had died when he was a baby--Horne prefaces his U.S. reminiscences with his own family history, describing his childhood in harsh British ``public'' schools. The Cutlers sent Horne to Millbrook, a sylvan New York State boarding school, where he thrived and befriended future writer and publisher William F. Buckley, although he disagreed with Buckley's isolationist position regarding U.S. involvement in the war. Despite the difficulty of adjusting to a new home and the pain of missing his father, Horne recalls his American adolescence with prim, sometimes cloying affection and gratitude. Photos not seen by PW. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

A chatty, meandering memoir of the British historian widely known for his definitive, two-volume biography of the late prime minister Harold Macmillan (1989). As a ``bundle from Britain''--a child evacuee to America during WW II--Horne is able to offer an interesting perspective on events and attitudes in the US prior to and shortly after this country entered the war, in particular a strong anti-British sentiment that changed only with the attack on Pearl Harbor. Horne's story begins in England with a rather drawn-out portrait of his journalist mother, Auriol, who died an untimely death in an automobile accident. After delivering an exhaustive account of every member of his extended family--including amusing anecdotes about some of their more notorious servants--Horne details his dreary and often brutal experiences in British boarding schools. In July 1940, he boarded the Britannic, bound for New York City and safety. He was ``adopted'' by the prestigious Cutler family and spent the next three years attending Millbrook Academy and living among the cream of East Coast society. Horne is not above a bit of name-dropping and often interrupts his narrative with detailed personal histories of famous friends, acquaintances, and relatives of the Cutlers. Upon graduation from Millbrook, Horne attempted to join the RAF but was disqualified because of poor eyesight. He returned to England, where he managed to be accepted into the Coldstream Guard. Horne has a keen eye for significant historical events, but he buries his day-to-day reminiscences beneath an avalanche of information--his story seems more researched than remembered. The same qualities that produce brilliance in his historical writings--a penchant for detail and a pursuit of the social connections that bind his subjects together into complex entanglements--render his autobiography detached and impersonal.