SOME PRESS OPINIONS
Mr. J. C. Squire in Land and Water.
“The difficulties of writing good school stories are matters of commonplace observation. The boy cannot see everything, and, as a rule, cannot write. The man forgets much and sentimentalises much. The dilemma will never be completely avoided. But Mr. Alec Waugh’s ‘The Loom of Youth’ is a remarkable attempt.... At his best, he manages his material like an old hand. It is a most astonishing feat.”
Capt. C. K. Scott-Moncrieff in The New Witness.
“Mr. Waugh has told us a story, the story of Gordon Carruthers’ life at Fernhurst.... I look forward confidently to see him come to grips with the army as thoroughly as he has done with the schools. This year has been big with futures, among which that of Robert Nichols seems incomparably to outshine all the rest. But Mr. Waugh is an author to be diligently followed and enjoyed with delight.”
Mr. Gerald Gould in The New Statesman.
“For a writer of any age ‘The Loom of Youth’ would be a remarkable achievement; for a boy of seventeen it is more.... And the language is fresh and real, the talk is boys’ talk, such as only some one fresh from it could render.... Difficulties are overcome in two ways—firstly by sheer sound psychology, by making the characters so interesting that it is their minds, not their external activities, that we bother about.... I want, in conclusion, to recommend this book for its courage as well as for its interest. One main problem of school life is the moral one, which most writers shirk, or if they treat it at all, treat sentimentally and timidly and obliquely. Mr. Waugh goes right to the point.”
Mr. Ralph Straus in The Bystander.
“You feel that all the boys at Fernhurst ... are real people, not the agreeable caricatures, for instance, of ‘The Hill’; and in the Games Master who is so pleasantly nicknamed ‘The Bull’ Mr. Waugh has created a character which epitomises the whole Public School system.... ‘The Loom of Youth’ will take its place amongst the few first-class school stories which have been published this century.”