Claudia FitzHerbert

Who needed who most? The complex bond between Vera Brittain and Winifred Holtby

Throughout their correspondence, the fragile Brittain is often painfully demanding – but the role of devoted supporter seems to gratify Holtby

Vera Brittain, as a nurse in the first world war; Winifred Holtby, in a studio portrait for the Bystander magazine, 1933. [Hulton Archive/Getty Images; Illustrated London News ltd/Mary Evans Picture Library] 
issue 29 October 2022

These letters between Vera Brittain and Winifred Holtby cover 15 years of a remarkable friendship that began at Somerville College, Oxford in 1919 and ended only with Holtby’s premature death from kidney failure in 1935.

Brittain went up to Oxford in 1914, but left to serve as a nurse in the first world war.

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