Slightly Foxed

Over to Candleford and Candleford Green by Flora Thompson

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Over to Candleford and Candleford Green

‘Over to Candleford’ and ‘Candleford Green’ form the second and third part of the semi-autobiographical account of Flora Thompson’s early experiences in rural Oxfordshire, of which ‘Lark Rise’ is the first. These later installments speak of her childhood and formative years in the rural hamlet of Lark Rise, her first exposure of town life in the neighbouring market town of Candleford and the years spent working as postmistress’s assistant in the small village of Candleford Green.

‘Over to Candleford’, picks up the narrative in the last decade of the glorious Victorian era, a time of great contentment even amongst the hamlet’s poor people, and relative peace, a time when war seemed like a long forgotten thing to be read of, only in history books. It was a time of great change too – a time for new discoveries and inventions and industrial development. New modes of transport were being introduced – the advent of railways and even the penny farthing bicycle. Life in Lark Rise seemed relatively insulated ,however, but that of the nearby market towns were slowly changing and it is towards these places that Flora Thompson directs our gaze in her later books.

‘Over to Candleford’ starts with some degree of restlessness. Curiously enough, we discover that it is this characteristic of mental restlessness that guides the course of Flora Thompson’s future life. In this second book, Flora Thompson through the eyes of Laura, shows us that Laura is no longer a small child, confined to myopically observing the details of the small hamlet in which she spent her early years – a hamlet she described most lovingly and evocatively in her first book – ‘Lark Rise’. The child’s eye moves outwardly, no longer restricted to the fertile, flat farmlands surrounding her cottage home – but more curiously towards the nearby market town. Candleford, was a mere eight miles away but in those days of horses and carts and limited conveyance, a seeming world away from home. In those days a woman might travel six to seven miles, several hours, to purchase small sundry items to add a bit of meaty variety to a Sunday meal, or a small daily necessity like a packet of tea, or reel of cotton.

Over to Candleford’s chapters are devoted to a variety of topics – the social structure of the inhabitants of Lark Rise in the late Victorian period along with lyrical descriptions of its rural beauty. The chapter ‘Once Upon a Time’ describes Laura’s mother’s gift for storytelling. Another chapter is a character study of Mrs Herring – the Timms’ crusty old landlady with a tendency to hoard everything from old clothes, empty picture frames, copper preserving pans and even out-of-fashion steel, crinoline hoops in the secret storage space under the generous eaves of the cottage. But there is definitely a sense of excitement in the chapter where Laura’s father hires a pony and spring cart, one fine Sunday in summer, and takes the whole family to visit relations in Candleford. Here we are introduced to kindly Aunt Ann, bookish Uncle Tom and their children, a family that Laura would grow quite close to. In fact, Uncle Tom owned a large library of books and the moments that he and Laura would spend reading books in the summer holidays, (books like Cranford) whilst he worked in his shoe shop are really quite special. The visit to Candleford would mark the end of Laura’s childhood and soon after Laura was released to a world of school with all its challenges. But the reader can gauge by the vivid descriptions of Candleford, that young Laura was quite dazzled with the toy shops, glittering jewellers, sweet shops and even the grocers with all his wares on display – the whole salmon reposing on beds of green reeds, keeping cool with pieces of ice in the month of August.

At the end of the book, Laura leaves school and has a decision to make regarding her future work and direction in life. Lacking the nurturing instinct, Laura’s mother realises her daughter is not suitable for work in nursing. When a position as postmistress’s assistant comes up in the small village of Candleford Green, on the outskirts of Candleford, Laura’s mother does not hesitate to send her daughter to Postmistress Dorcas Lane’s care – Dorcas consequently being an old family friend.

Laura breaks into the silence of Candleford Green, one sleepy afternoon, when nothing is stirring except for the lone village donkey, grazing on the Green. A flock of geese flounce towards the spring-cart that Laura’s father drives, filled with curiosity. Everyone is either preoccupied with work, further afield, or are in repose. The descriptions of Candleford Green, it’s peacefulness and quietude are about as perfect a description of a Victorian village that I have ever encountered. Candleford Green was a small village, distinct from Candleford but would later merge with the country town, to be reincarnated as its suburb. The village was marked by its central Green, with its wide spreading oak, white painted seats for rest, the lone church spire piercing the leafy trees and its cluster of shops and cottages. The farther, sparser side of the Green was occupied by the Post Office, Dorcas Lane’s long, low white-washed house and the blacksmith’s forge, also under the charge of Miss Lane.

Working hours for Laura at the Post Office consisted of sorting the seven o’clock morning mail and ended at night. There was no half day off and even Sunday was partly working, with a morning delivery of letters and outward mail for Sunday evenings. Though Laura learns a lot about post office work, even mastering the shiny new telegraph instrument with brass trio and white dials, one senses a feeling of longing for the outdoors and country scenery of her home. There is a visit to her home after many weeks and a conversation with her Mother that is filled with a feeling of wistfulness for her family. One gains a feeling that she is being overworked and hence it is not surprising that at the end of the book, Laura seeks work elsewhere.

However, life spent in Miss Lane’s house was not without its comforts and charms. There was a plentiful table, the comfort of a weekly hot bath in Miss Lane’s warm and toasty bath house, previously a brew house. A copper hip bath was filled to the brim with plentiful hot water, boiled over a hot fire, lighted at the end of the day by the smith apprentice and transported by hose pipe to the bath house. Laura was to remember the warmth and comfort of those toasty baths in future, when times were harder.

Candleford Green was in essence a small village and like all small villages, the village people knew about one another and of each other’s affairs intimately. The community consisted of shopkeepers, the doctor and clergy, gentlemen and women of independent, if reduced means, artisans and labourers, the schoolmaster, the squires of the surrounding country houses and their huge army of servants. They all trickled into one community and in a way, the Post Office, was the centre of it all. It was quite natural for the postmistress to know everyone and of their affairs. Laura describes the village doctor, frequently called in the middle of the night on his night bell, having to leap into his horse to visit outlying farms, some even 10 miles distant. Despite his initial annoyance, the doctor had a compelling sense of duty and was much loved and respected in the community. The Vicar, Mr Coulsdon was generous too, and the descriptions of the free soup made twice a week in the huge vicarage coppers sound very appetising.

“…rich and thick with pearl barley and lean beef gobbets and golden carrot rings and fat little dumplings…”

For the bibliophile, Laura’s descriptions of the books she encountered and loved are particularly interesting. Laura describes the joy of taking a library ticket at the Mechanic’s Institute in Candleford and enjoying the works of Dickens, the Waverley novels, Barchester Towers and Pride and Prejudice, sparking a life long love for the books of Trollope and Austen.

Everything is most keenly observed, both the characters, and the descriptions of the pastimes and occupations of the people in Laura’s life. But Flora Thompson’s writing excels in her descriptions of nature and the outdoors, something that is beautifully written about on the walks that Laura took, on the daily postal delivery rounds – a responsibility given to her, after some time at the Post Office.

“Her path as postwoman led over much pastureland and she often returned with her shoes powdered yellow with buttercup pollen. The copses were full of bluebells and there were kingcups and forget-me-nots by the margins of the brooks and cowslips and pale purple milkmaids in the water-meadows. Laura seldom returned from her round without more flowers in her hand then she knew what to do with. Her bedroom looked and smelled like a garden…”

Like all the best memoirs, Flora Thompson’s – Lark Rise to Candleford’ trilogy makes one curious to know more about the author. The twists and turns of their future path. Their life, their loves, the decisions they made, the joy and sadness they felt. And this wonderful trilogy poised at a rather crucial juncture in Laura’s life, when she was very young and the rest of her life was spread before her, leaves the reader’s appetite particularly unwhetted. There is another instalment of Laura’s life I believe, and I will most certainly be reaching out for it in future.

‘Over to Candleford and Candleford Green’ was a kind gift from the publisher, Slightly Foxed, but as always all opinions are my very own.

Still Life by Richard Cobb

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Still Life by Richard Cobb

*My experience of reading Richard Cobb’s ‘Still Life’ published by @foxedquarterly *

Historian Richard Cobb’s memoir about growing up in Tunbridge Wells in the 1920’s and ‘30’s and thereafter feels very much like a miniaturist painting – only transmuted to book form. 

For as the dextrous miniaturist painter adds infinitesmal detail to his work of art, so too has the author added layer upon layer of minute detail of his retelling of childhood.

As a reader, this has a few challenges. Some of the details might seem excessive at first or unnecessary, but in retrospect it is those details that render the painting or work so full of depth and it can ultimately feel quite rewarding. Cobb doesn’t write solely about important noteworthy people and events. His pen sweeps in every aspect of every person and place that his young person encountered, in the most quotidian detail. Mostly, as a young and sensitive boy he seeks reassurance in the continuity of things. Be that the presence of a town person walking on the common, or of the presence and unchanging aspect of Tunbridge Wells itself. 

Cobb’s family moved to Tunbridge Wells when he was four i.e in 1921. His family consisted of his father an ex serviceman in the Sudan Civil Service, his mother, with a penchant for playing bridge at the Ladies’ Bridge Club and his elder sister. 

Though Cobb’s mother seems to have a slightly snobbish character, enjoying her Club activities and being sensible of her middle class friends there, there was an absence of such class related sensibilities in Cobb’s personal narrative. This is why, we learn about all types of people who lived in Tunbridge Wells. Cobb leaves no-one out. No person is too lowly, no incident is too ordinary to prevent it being mentioned. 

In the early chapters, Cobb with the thoroughness of the historian goes into great depth regarding the geographical approach to Tunbridge Wells. Don’t be deterred by the minute details however, the later chapters relate incidents related to his mother and father, his assortment of relatives, some of them quite unusual – residing in Tunbridge Wells, how the Second World War affected (it didn’t affect) the towns people and more. 

An interesting chapter was that describing the Limbury-Buses – relations of the Cobb’s – who lead an extraordinarily insulated life, even during the war, not allowing any of their daily routines to be upset or any outside news to penetrate to the interior of the house.

I came away knowing about a place that I had never known before. I felt that perhaps I knew Royal Tunbridge Wells better than many places I had actually been before. Now that’s quite a feat of writing for you. 

I’d however, recommend this book for the reader who has an interest in small, exacting details. If you delight in the minutiae of a place and it’s people – then this memoir is for you. 

I was sent this book as a press copy from the folks at Slightly Foxed but all impressions are entirely my own.

‘Cider With Rosie’ by Laurie Lee

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Laurie Lee’s wonderful evocation of his childhood, in a small Cotswold village in ‘Cider With Rosie’ was a memorable recent read. 

The book starts in the wake of the First World War. Lee was at the time just a small boy of three. There is a quite mesmerising description of Lee being handed down from the cart that brought them to their crumbling Cotswold cottage, and him standing in the grass in a field in front of his house – grass so tall in the month of June that it towered over his head – ‘each blade tattooed with tiger-skins of sunlight’. 

Each recapitulation is so vivid that it really set’s the reader’s imagination ablaze with heady imagery. The prose is packed with descriptors that really bring to life every sensory detail. Laurie Lee takes us down memory lane. One by one the people, places and incidents of his childhood are recounted but in a way, that immerses us in the landscape- to witness the peculiar activities of the elderly old ladies who are their close neighbours (Granny Trill and Granny Wallon), to hear and feel the rush of rain, clap of thunder of a great storm that practically submerges their low lying cottage, and to breathe in and taste the heady flavour of cider from the bounty of apples from the valley. 

It is not an entirely bucolic evocation of a perfect childhood. There are plenty of disturbing stories of village incidents, criminal activities, death, poverty and decay. Some of them are harrowing to say the least. But I would say, that one takes away a rather sunny, if realistic, snapshot on the whole, of childhood in the Cotswold village. 

Some of the people we meet in ‘Cider With Rosie’ seem larger than life. Granny Trill and Granny Wallon are the family’s neighbours – and Laurie Lee certainly conjures them up as having slightly spooky, witch-like characteristics – Granny Wallon distilling fine wines from the wild growth of the surrounding fields and hedges – cowslips, dandelions, elderflower and more. Granny Trill on the other hand followed a weird and wonderful primitive schedule – breakfasting at the crack of dawn and going to bed at 5 pm. Granny Trill also told weird and wonderful stories and took snuff out of a snuff box that the boys surreptitiously stole. 

Lee’s Mother was an extraordinary, slightly eccentric woman who took care of her husband’s children from her first marriage and those of her own marriage, singlehandedly. It is true that there were a number of older step sisters who took care of the young brood- of which Laurie Lee or ‘Loll’ as he was affectionately called was one. Their Father left the family and never came back. Their Mother, started life as a housemaid and served the gentry for several years in various country houses before accepting a position as a housekeeper to their Father’s household. She frequently recalled the fine details of the serving dishes, silverware, food and customs of the gentry. She later retained this affection for beautiful things and would often haunt auctions and sales for bargain treasures, which would grace their ramshackle Cotswold cottage – strewn with arts and artefacts, plants and flowers . Always short of money, the children would be sent to their neighbours for a bit of salt or some spare change to make ends meet. 

Lee’s Mother had a keen eye for beauty, a love for poetry, music and nature. She was a true romantic and spent her entire life waiting for her husband to come back to her. 

The chapter describing the tradition of carol singing by the young boys of the village is a classic extract, gracing many of the best Christmas anthologies. I was delighted to read it within the context of Lee’s memoir. Just as memorable, is the description of summer, the harvesting of apples, the making of cider, the long walks and picnics through the valley. The change of seasons and the beauty that accompanies them are described evocatively in the book. 

There are many other intimate moments, too numerous to describe in this review that make this book very special. The people, sense of place and incidents are remarkable but the whole is lifted to another plane of excellence by Laurie Lee’s exceptional gift for prose – poetic and uplifting. ‘Cider With Rosie’ is a little gem of a book – to be re read ever so often – to glean new and wondrous details. 

My edition of ‘Cider With Rosie’ was a press copy from Slightly Foxed but all opinions are my own.

Look Back With Love by Dodie Smith

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‘Look Back With Love’ is the author Dodie Smith’s childhood chronicle of an Edwardian upbringing in the city of Manchester.

Young Dodie Smith lost her father when she was an infant and was brought up by her mother and a doting household of maternal grandparents, aunts and uncles. Her rather precocious nature was precipitated by her being the only child in a large family of adults.

We track Dodie’s childhood from a young age to the onset of her teenage years, when her mother married a long-time fiancee and moved to London. The decade that Dodie Smith recounts is filled with the most delightful details of how the Furber family (Dodie’s mother’s family name) lived.

It was by no means a privileged existence, but there was no dearth of merriment and entertainment to be had in the Furber household. The first house where they lived and which Dodie could remember perfectly, Kingston House, is described as

…a house with four sitting-rooms and three pianos.

It was located near Old Trafford, then a Manchester suburb. The main inhabitants of the household were Dodie’s grandparents, her uncles Harold, Arthur and Eddie; her aunts Madge and Bertha and Dodie and her mother.The house and rooms are described with delightful detail. One can tell that here lies a household who take great pleasure in making a house their home despite not being blessed by wealth. The description of the kitchen delighted me. It reminded me ever so slightly of Cassandra’s nighttime baths in the kitchen in ‘I Capture the Castle’.

Next to the morning-room was the very large kitchen, with two tall dressers, a long row of iron bells, and a vast kitchen range with a glowing fire in front of which, in our early days at Kingston House, I had my nightly bath. Above me hung the family washing, on a wooden rock that could be pulled up to the ceiling.

In fact most of the characters in Dodie’s family are so distinctive and quirky they might have jumped off the pages of one of her books. Her mother Ella, was petite with a penchant for delicate, elegant dresses. Not well-educated she was well read and enjoyed Hardy, the Brontes and Rider Haggard among others. Her grandmother played the piano beautifully and her eldest Uncle Harold was a brilliant amateur theatre actor. Her Uncle Arthur had a weakness for patent medicine, claimed to have a weak digestion and thrived on toasted cheese. Dodie’s Aunt Bertha was also an eccentric character who could not tell her left hand from her right unless she hopped, and who insisted that if she were left alone for more than three hours her teeth went soft!

The family had known prosperous times until Dodie’s grandfather, the secretary of a large chemical firm lost his job when the company was run to the ground. He then embarked on a number of jobs and was not successful at either of them. He tried his hand at farming, running a public house, a shop and several other projects that were never mentioned in the house. Once the uncles started working, things came to an even keel although from the descriptions provided there was never an excess of money and the family made the best of what they had.

The family were very good at creating diversions and entertainment for themselves. One of their favourite places to visit on the weekend was Old Trafford Botanical Gardens.

To wear a white muslin dress and bonnet and my best white doe-skin shoes, and to wander hand-in-hand with two straw-hatted uncles over the sunlit lawns, while the band played Valse Bleu, was the essence of high holiday.

Those Edwardian days were the kind where a stray sixpence found by Dodie and her friend in the  Gardens would yield four ounces of sweets for a penny and a luxurious cab ride home for the young pair for three pence.

Other sources of entertainment included musical soirees at home, where members of the family would sing, play musical instruments or recite. The family were also avid theatre goers and Uncle Harold’s involvement with amateur dramatics would pave the path to Dodie’s future career aspirations on the stage.

The book is peppered with very funny anecdotes like the case of one of Dodie’s classmates being an avid ink drinker and Dodie’s candid comments about her mother’s changing fiancees. But underneath the gaiety and merriment, the author reveals her personal childhood angst.

I had a happy childhood but I was not a happy child, and I was aware of this from a very early age.

Perhaps the traces of her unhappiness rooted from her heightened sensitivity which would later lend to her creativity as a writer and artist. Her increased levels of empathy made it impossible for her to accept the suffering of living animals and creatures. She was never even able to kill the most rampant mosquito. She was also filled with a great degree of introspection and moral consciousness which also contributed to her unhappiness.

If you like me, loved reading Dodie Smith’s classic novel ‘I Capture the Castle’ you will realize, upon reading this memoir that Cassandra is to some extent Dodie Smith. They feel one and the same. Besides providing a detailed historical description of life and times in the Edwardian age, this bookish memoir is an intimate glance at the person who created a veritable body of literature. The anecdotes are splendid and unique. I cannot recommend this memoir enough and I hope to read later episodes in her life history.

I received a review copy of ‘Look Back With Love’ from Slightly Foxed, but as always all opinions are my very own.

A Vivid ‘Portrait of Elmbury’ by John Moore

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‘Portrait of Elmbury’ by John Moore is the recounting of the author’s life, in the small market town of Elmbury in the interwar years.

It seems that the name Elmbury is a fictitious name. In all probability the town of Elmbury is the author’s childhood hometown of Tewkesbury. The names of the characters that show up frequently in the narrative have also been changed to preserve anonymity. What cannot be disguised, however, is the author’s fondness for his hometown, its valleys and fields, its orchards and woods, its rivers and farms ,along with the assortment of distinguished and motley characters that lend Elmbury, a character all its very own.

We follow the author’s life chronologically, starting from the years 1913-1918, when he was a small child, to his boyhood: 1919-1924, his early working life as an auctioneer’s apprentice at his uncle’s office in Elmbury: 1924-1927, a period of returning to Elmbury after four years writing in London: 1931-1935 and lastly a description of the years leading up to the commencement of the Second World War.

The narrative is extremely dense. One needs to devote absolute concentration during reading lest one misses out a detail of an incident, a character or a description.

One fact emerges quite early on in the narrative and that is the fact that Elmbury is not that idyllic English country town bestowed with bucolic charm. This is no James Herriot style storytelling. We learn of the beauty of Elmbury but it is always coupled with the not so beautiful, the derelict and the ugly. And it rears its ugly face in the form of the disreputable ‘Double Alley’.

Indeed, even among Elmbury’s slums, Double Alley was something to be wondered at. Respectable women drew their skirts closer about them as they passed its nauseous opening; even the doctor and the priest were unwilling adventurers on the rare occasions when they were summoned to visit it; and policemen, who were more frequent visitors, took care to go in pairs when their duties took them there.

The author grows up in what he describes as the ‘loveliest house in Elmbury’, Tudor House, which is plump opposite to the entrance to the squalor of Double Alley. Through the window, the young author and his sibling witness the goings on that occur on the high street of Elmbury, the daily rituals of Elmbury residents and the Punch and Judy like theatrics of the Double Alley residents. We learn of the town scoundrels-Pistol, Bardolph and Nym; the Colonel who makes faces at them through the window and emerges later on in the narrative as one of the author’s dearest friends.

Even though, the author accentuates the dirt and filth of Elmbury, ever so often, we are treated to pictures of pastoral perfection. It is in these descriptions of nature where the author excels.

It was a perfect autumn evening. There was mist like blue smoke hanging about the little wood they called the Dogleg Spinney and down in the vale you could see streaks of whiter mist over the the river. The sun was setting in a mass of airy pink clouds like flying flamingos and the Abbey tower, catching the light, burned like a beacon. The chestnut trees in the churchyard, with brown and yellow leaves, were incandescent also. Sprawled around the Abbey, half in light and half in shadow, lay the lovely and haphazard town.

If I had one word of criticism about the narrative it is this that: I found the author distanced his own personal life tremendously from the text. We know scant details of his life: that his father was the mayor of the village, that he lost his father early on in life, that he joined his uncle’s office as an auctioneer, that he disliked certain aspects of his job especially auctioning off the belongings of poor farmers in debt, that he started writing books and left for London to be part of the fashionable writing set, that he returned to Elmbury, after those years in exile with a greater appreciation for the place.

Emotion seemed larger here, pleasures were keener, sorrows sharper, men’s laughter was more boisterous, jokes were funnier, the tragedy was more profound and the comedy more riotous, the huge fantasy of life was altogether more fantastic. London, for all its street lights, was a twilit world; Elmbury on a murky February evening, seemed as bright as a stage.

When the author does return to Elmbury, it is the time of the Great Depression and this time of hardship is felt as keenly in Elmbury as any other place in Britain. It can be witnessed in the long line of people standing outside the Labour Exchange, of the large number of people loitering without a purpose on street corners, in the abject expression in the faces of the villagers…

Then there is a period of ‘uneasy peace’, a lull before the great storm of the Second World War. The people of Elmbury, are called away- some to distant foreign fields to wage a bloody war and some like the author take to the skies in mortal combat.

For my part, I had determined that when war came-we no longer thought of it as ‘if’- I should fight it in the air; for I had just learned to fly a Moth, had discovered a brave new world of cirrus and cumulus, and was bemused by the strange beauty of the sky’s snowy regions, its unearthly continents of clouds.

 

Many of these people never return to the green verdant fields of Elmbury…

‘Portrait of Elmbury’ is, as the title suggests, a vivid and minutely detailed historical sketch of the market town as seen through the eyes of the author. What is very evident is the author’s great love for the place. I enjoyed it for a unique glimpse at a way of life that occupies a special place in the rural history of England.

I’m eager to read the second book in the trilogy- ‘Brensham Village’,  to see exactly where the story takes us.

 

I received a review copy of ‘Portrait of Elmbury’ from the kind people at Slightly Foxed but all opinions about this wonderful narrative are entirely my own.