‘She longed to go alone far into the fields and hear the birds singing’
Flora Thompson, the author of the trilogy of books which together formed ‘Lark Rise to Candleford’, was born just north of Bicester in the tiny hamlet of Juniper Hill, the inspiration for the village of Lark Rise. The novels, which found a wider readership through the TV dramatisation of 10 or so years ago, was a biography of sorts – a reflection of Flora’s early life spent in the bucolic rural landscape at the close of the 19th century. These tight knit communities had existed with little change for centuries and yet as the century rolled over into the twentieth, wide and sweeping change started to take place. The development of the local towns, Brackley, Buckingham and Bicester (an amalgam of which is Candleford in the novels) was perhaps the most striking observation for the young Flora (Laura in the novel) and as that century continued, dramatic change accelerated not only in the way places looked, but also in the way they behaved – rural isolation was becoming a thing of the past, entire lifetimes spent in the same village were slowly eroded as travel became easy and inexpensive. But there is much in those villages of Flora’s past which remains unchanged – sitting in the garden of the Muddy Duck in Hethe, or on the green in Fringford (Candleford Green) and the view is pretty much as Flora would have seen it. Even the family names of a hundred years ago are still very much in evidence – it doesn’t take long to come across a Timms, Flora’s maiden name, in these parts (hello Elliot!).
The right change is good, but there’s some stuff from the past which needs to be cherished. For a cracking introduction Lark Rise country, seek out the Shellswell History Festival next weekend, up at Elms Farm in Newton Purcell, just off the Buckingham Road.
Garden Fires by Flora Thompson
A drift of wood and weed-smoke
Floats o’er the garden spaces,
Circling the orchard tree-tops;
They’re burning up the traces
Of Winter from the earth,
Now Spring has birth.
Soft showers of snowy petals
Bestrew the bright, lush green;
Blue smokewreaths wheel and thicken
As warm winds stir between,
And living tongues of flame
Put daffodils to shame.
And men shall make such fires,
And warm Spring winds blow free,
When all the great desires
Which rend the heart of me
Shall dwindle into dust,
For Time is just!
Our Coles Signed Editions this week are joyous bunch – The best parties are often in the kitchen and when it’s Sophie Ellis-Bextor with hubby Richard Jones on the Wheels of Steel & Pans, then the disco is bound to be jumping; the cuisine is getting exotic in Mezcla from Ixta Belfrage; we head to Yorkshire with Harry Pearson for some first class County Cricket with a trio of legends; the joy of friendship between men is celebrated by Michael Pedersen; award winning novelist Jessie Burton is back with another cracker, the beautiful ‘House of Fortune’; we’re in the saddle with Daniel Friebe for his biography of the immensely talented, but flawed cyclist Jan Ullrich; following Book Club last week we have some signed 1st Edition paperbacks of Howard Cunnell’s ‘The Painter’s Friend’ – a fabulously written novel reflecting these times we find ourselves in; the Witches of Woodville saga continues with Mark Stay’s ‘The Ghost of Ivy Barn’; A.J. Pearce, Blake Crouch, Elizabeth Laird, Kate Brook, Mike Gayle, Phoebe Wynne, Alice Hoffman & Jenny Éclair are our gang of storytellers this week; Patrick Radden Keefe goes in search of ‘Rogues’ (and finds polenty!); the majesty of golf when played by Seve Ballesteros was captured beautifully by the lens of David Cannon and we turn the volume up to 11 for some Limited Editions from Black Sabbath and Aerosmith’s Brad Whitford.
The full Newsletter can be found HERE
