Humorous, quirky, great for an Anglophile

My interest was piqued by the character Olive, her impishness in getting her friend to take Poppins the pigeon along to his initial training site, and her encounter with a redoubtable village woman at the pharmacy. It appears that this book will be filled with quirky characters that are well-drawn, including the secretive pharmacist. As well, the memory of a stuffed carrier pigeon in a Veterans’ Museum (in the US)which became a prisoner-of-war drew me to this excerpt.