ON his regular walk to work, teaching creative writing at Goldsmiths College in south London, Francis Spufford passes a memorial to the 168 people killed by a V2 bomb falling on a Woolworths store in 1944. Sixteen of them were young children, brought by their mothers on a Saturday shopping trip. Prof Spufford began thinking about those children: what if they hadn’t died, what would their futures have been? He imagined five of them, gave them names and characters, and dropped in on their lives every 10, 15, 20 years to see how they were getting on.
The result is his second novel, Light Perpetual, published earlier this year and a palimpsest, you might say, of the latter half of the 20th century. ‘It’s about how, close up, no life is ordinary,’ he explains, ‘and how the destinies of children born in the 1940s exploded in all directions, with opportunities drastically different from anything their parents could possibly have imagined.’
We are talking in the garden of his home, which comes with his wife Jessica Martin’s job as a canon of Ely Cathedral in Cambridgeshire; above us hang the creamy, scented lobes of a false acacia tree, itself dwarfed by the Gothic west tower of the cathedral only a few yards outside the garden wall. Behind us are the choristers’ boarding houses of the King’s School; beyond, parkland and a meadow grazed by cattle, all circled by the unseen city below: very rus in urbe.
Denne historien er fra July 28, 2021-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra July 28, 2021-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Kitchen garden cook - Apples
'Sweet and crisp, apples are the epitome of autumn flavour'
The original Mr Rochester
Three classic houses in North Yorkshire have come to the market; the owner of one inspired Charlotte Brontë to write Jane Eyre
Get it write
Desks, once akin to instruments of torture for scribes, have become cherished repositories of memories and secrets. Matthew Dennison charts their evolution
'Sloes hath ben my food'
A possible paint for the Picts and a definite culprit in tea fraud, the cheek-suckingly sour sloe's spiritual home is indisputably in gin, says John Wright
Souvenirs of greatness
FOR many years, some large boxes have been stored and forgotten in the dark recesses of the garage. Unpacked last week, the contents turned out to be pots: some, perhaps, nearing a century old—dense terracotta, of interesting provenance.
Plants for plants' sake
The garden at Hergest Croft, Herefordshire The home of Edward Banks The Banks family is synonymous with an extraordinary collection of trees and shrubs, many of which are presents from distinguished friends, garnered over two centuries. Be prepared to be amazed, says Charles Quest-Ritson
Capturing the castle
Seventy years after Christian Dior’s last fashion show in Scotland, the brand returned under creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri for a celebratory event honouring local craftsmanship, the beauty of the land and the Auld Alliance, explains Kim Parker
Nature's own cathedral
Our tallest native tree 'most lovely of all', the stately beech creates a shaded environment that few plants can survive. John Lewis-Stempel ventures into the enchanted woods
All that money could buy
A new book explores the lost riches of London's grand houses. Its author, Steven Brindle, looks at the residences of plutocrats built by the nouveaux riches of the late-Victorian and Edwardian ages
In with the old
Diamonds are meant to sparkle in candlelight, but many now gather dust in jewellery boxes. To wear them today, we may need to reimagine them, as Hetty Lintell discovers with her grandmother's jewellery
