A HOUSE FOR JOANNA By John Heygate This is the
simple, happy little tale of the house that John modernised. With its pretty pink binding and its gently rural illustrations by Philip Gough, A House for Joanna (Cape, 7s. 6d.). makes the perfect present for better-class newlyweds coping with the housing problem. It will not help them much in a technical sense, but it will help them through the dark days of searching, of interviewing house-agents, of controlling architects and builders, to read with what whimsical fortitude Mr. Heygate and Joanna created their home out of a derelict sixteenth-century farmhouse. Mr. Heygate has the perfect manner for this sort of narrative. He knows how to invest such apparently dull necessities as water-tanks, electric points, boot-rails and bathroom fixtures with personality, and his account of choosing other less mentionable ware will amuse even those with the nicest sensibilities. Finally, he tells of their first days in the finished house, concluding with a rather coy account of how the house finally awoke to life at a baby's cry.
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