Book description
The idea of the village - unspoilt, unpretentious, unchanging and
growing almost organically out of the landscape - is one of the most
potent in the English imagination. Writers, artists and ordinary
people have waxed lyrical on the theme for centuries, while today
millions have left the cities in search of the rural idyll.
Yet the village is plainly dying. The unchanging rhythms of village
life, as experienced with little variations by generations, have
vanished. But not without trace ... they exist in living memory. In
the voices of men and women for whom the old ways were life-shaping
realities.
Richard Askwith, an award-winning writer and journalist, describes a
journey in search of the quintessential English village, through dales
and suburbs, down ancient lanes and estates. He captures the voices of
poachers and gamekeepers, farmers and hunters, nurses and postmen,
teachers and craftsmen, and demonstrates that, while the landscape
more changed than we thought, the past is never so simple as we imagine.
Richard Askwith is Associate Editor of the
Independent
. His pieces have appeared in
Observer Sport Monthly
,
Independent on Sunday
and
Runner's
World
. His highly-acclaimed first book,
Feet
in the Clouds
, won the National Sports Book of the Year Best New Writer, as well as
the Bill Rollinson Prize for Landscape & Tradition at the Lakeland
Book of the Year Awards. He lives in the village of Moreton Pinkney,
Northamptonshire.
