SOMEONE sneezes at the Old Forge Cottage. Is it the new baby? Mrs Granger at the tea shop has a homemade remedy. Grandma Brown at the almshouse has run out of sugar. No problem, because Ted the driver will exchange a cupful for some rhubarb. We can imagine this village—let’s call it Loveby, because it survives on caring and helping.
Thousands of such communities across this land after the First World War knew the value of self-sufficiency and the necessity of using all the skills and experience collectively available. Villages through the decades after 1918 survived on communal values and these were driven by a particular brand of economics, made up of questions and cheeriness.
Villages as they were by about 1930 were magnets for women writers, new professionals who were emerging in droves, supported by a boom in outlets for stories and reportage. There was a middlebrow revolution going on and women had acquired the necessary skills, from shorthand and typing to editing and drafting. When they looked around them for inspiration, they found that writing didn’t have to be metropolitan and sophisticated. There was an abundance of material in those small places that had lost most of their young men and massive storytelling potential under their apparently tranquil roofs.
When Stella Gibbons wrote her novel The Rich House, she used an epigraph from Tolstoy: ‘Every life— the practical life of each individual, with its home questions of health and sickness, of toil and rest… with its passions, loves and friendships— ran its regular course, without troubling itself… about an alliance or breach with Napoleon.’ Does our cosy Loveby not fit the bill here?
Denne historien er fra July 19, 2023-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra July 19, 2023-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.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
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
