Book description
Born and brought up in rural Suffolk, Ronald Blythe was fascinated by
the rhythms of country life and the stories of the people he had known
since childhood. In this perceptive and moving evocation of his home,
the villagers speak candidly about their lives, from the reminiscences
of survivors of the First World War to a younger generation of farm
workers, as well as the personal recollections of a school teacher,
blacksmith, saddler, bellringer and district nurse. Together they give
us the voice of a village, and of a vanished rural England.
Generations of inhabitants have helped shape the English
countryside - but it has profoundly shaped us too. It has provoked a
huge variety of responses from artists, writers, musicians and
people who live and work on the land - as well as those who are
travelling through it.English Journeys celebrates this long
tradition with a series of twenty books on all aspects of the
countryside, from stargazey pie and country churches, to man's
relationship with nature and songs celebrating the patterns of the
countryside (as well as ghosts and love-struck soldiers).
Ronald Blythe
(born 1922) is a writer and editor, most famous for his bestselling
Akenfield: Portrait of an English Village
, which became an instant classic on its publication in 1969, and from
which this book is extracted.
