‘The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady’ by Edith Holden

 Edith Holden was a big influence on me in the 1970s - 80s. I loved reading the facsimile reproduction of her nature notes from 1906, printed in 1977, and subsequently bought further hardback volumes: ‘The Nature Notes 1905’ (a newly-discover predecessor),’The Edwardian Lady: the story of Edith Holden’ and ‘The Country Diary Companion’ to tie in with a television series in 1984. My love of nature, illustration, prose and poetry all fused together, and I found reading her nature notes both absorbing and relaxing. Similarly I used to look forward to watching the television series, beautifully filmed and acted, after a long day teaching full-time. It took me to another world and encouraged me to take up botanical illustration art classes. I loved drawing flowers but found water colour too difficult a medium, so I invested in a set of colouring pencils in a large wooden case, not unlike those I had as a child. My enthusiasm grew as I took delight in drawing and colouring fungi, inspired by another favourite illustrator: Beatrix Potter. I still watch the DVD of the television series, and although my colouring pencils are worn-down by former pupils and grandchildren these days, I loved the names of the colours as I did as a child: Chartreuse, Madder Carmine, Pale Ultramarine and Indigo.

A Year in the Meadow by Benjamin Perkins.

 Benjamin Perkins has known Lapwing Meadows in rural Suffolk for many years and takes the reader through the changing seasons there showing him local flora and fauna that he illustrates beautifully and plentifully in watercolour. It is an authentic account of living in the country, come rain or shine, and allows the reader to imagine a slower pace of life off the beaten track. I have always admired Benjamin Perkins’s paintings at exhibitions, so this book allows me to visit the unspoilt meadowland and landscape that has inspired him for so many years.

A Country Naturalist’s Year by Colvin McElvie

 Based in Dumfriesshire, but not exclusively, we visit the countryside through the seasons in the company of a very knowledgable guide. The book is lavishly illustrated by Rodger McPhail. This is a book to take to Scotland to sit by a log fire and read after a long day on the moors, along the woodland edge or by the river bank. And next day to enjoy looking further afield for all that has been missed: an osprey nest on a Highland river or the wild haunts of peregrine falcons and merlins, perhaps. All becomes possible when these pages are turned and savoured as we long to learn more.

Shorelands Summer Diary by C.F. Tunnicliffe

 I have always loved Tunnicliffe’s illustrations when I borrowed hardback books of essays by Alison Uttley from my local library. This diary, first published in 1952, explores his love of drawing and painting estuary birds between April to September from his home in Anglesey. The text is close to an autobiography and the many illustrations are sublime. Shorelands is the name of the bungalow whereTunnicliffe lived from 1947 until his death in 1979. This is a perfect book to take to a holiday cottage in a similarly remote place and pass time with binoculars, on walks or through the kitchen window,  identifying different species of estuary birds to be found there. Or during this time of Covid, to imagine such a place, living there and immersing oneself in its sense of place, hoping that one may return one day.

The Shell Nature Book

 Published in 1964, with beautiful illustrations by Edith and Rowland Hilder and other fine artists, this book takes me back to my childhood. It is not unlike the Ladybird nature series I enjoyed then, with text by Geoffrey Grigson. I know the illustrations well as some of them, printed in poster form,  I used as a primary teacher to accompany my classroom nature table throughout the changing seasons. There is something very comforting about these scenes, although one would have to be very lucky to see so many species of birds on a bird table or seashore. But that is why I love it, as I did those Ladybird illustrations; it lifts me into a perfect world, a rural idyll and I am quite content to bask in its loveliness. 

Gracelaced by Ruth Chou Simons

Discovering timeless truths through seasons of the heart

This is a beautiful book I dip into often to draw close to God - the seasonal illustrations are truly sublime but the text is equally inspiring, linked to familiar quotations from the Bible scripted in calligraphy to accompany the beautiful original artwork. 

‘And Jesus comes to us today - as He did 2000 years ago - offering an unburdened soul to us who lay our baggage at His feet and take up the yoke of rest He provides.’

‘The invitation and welcome is yours: to come as broken, hopeless and burdened...and to find peace for your soul.’

I was drawn to this book by chance - I have always loved nature diaries like ‘The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady’ by Edith Holden, and on of my favourite nature books is The Shell Nature Book - I used to use its reproduced posters to illustrate my classroom nature table when I started teaching over 40 years ago.

Similarly I love books of calligraphy - Bible quotations or poetry such a ‘Springs of Joy’ by Evelyn Scaramanga, ‘The Golden Thread’ and ‘Images of Christmas’ by Dorothy Boux.

But ‘Gracelaced’ takes me further - it urges me to takes in its spiritual teachings more deeply and for that I am very grateful. As George Harrison said, ‘Everything else can wait except for the search for God.’

A Month in the Country by J.L.Carr

My interest in medieval wall paintings grew through regular visits to St. Faith’s Chapel, Westminster Abbey where the east wall is covered by a 13th century portrait of  the Saint, accompanied by the monk who is said to have painted her. However, it was reading a short novel by J.L. Carr that inspired me to seek them out in country churches. A Month in the Country was published in 1980 , won the Guardian Fiction Prize and was shortlisted for the Booker. It was subsequently made into a film starring Kenneth Branagh and Colin Firth. It tells the story of Tom Birkin, a survivor from the Great War, commissioned to undertake the uncovering and restoration of a medieval Doom mural in a country church in Yorkshire during the ‘long warm days of August’. It is a simple poignant story of friendship, unrequited love, village life and painstaking restoration.  All too soon, Birkin’s country idyll is over and he is on his way.  J.L.Carr knows his subject well; passion and tension are both revealed behind the works of both artist and restorer, centuries apart. The church is set in fictitious Oxgodby, but in reality the author sets its background in the ‘fields of Northamptonshire’ as he explains in the foreword. Could he have been thinking of Croughton, perhaps, whose 14th century murals were discovered in 1921 and restored in the 1960s?  

A Doom worthy of such inspiration is that at Oddington, Gloucestershire. The village was moved to higher, drier ground after the Black Death, and a new church was built in 1852. By 1860, the church, dedicated to St. Nicholas and enlarged by the Normans, was derelict. Wall paintings, dated 1340, were not discovered until whitewash was removed in 1913 during restoration. An articleinThe Times, written in 1935, calls it ‘one of the most notable representations of the Last Judgement now surviving in the country’. It includes gruesome scenes from hell: grotesque monsters and boiling cauldrons in contrast to redeemed souls clambering to heaven, assisted by angels on the other side often mural. Restoring these works of art, sometimes hidden for centuries, obscured by dust and lime wash must be tremendously exciting. As Birkin explains in A Month in the Country, ‘perhaps you can understand if I explain that, to begin with, I wasn’t sure of what I was uncovering:’

‘It was breathtaking. A tremendous waterfall of colour, the blues of the apex falling, then seethingintoaturbulenceof red; like all truly great works of art, hammering you with its whole before beguiling you with its parts.’

Medieval wall paintings and other superstitious pictures were banned by Edward VI in 1547 and byElizabeth 1 in 1559. Others that escaped, in remote parts of the country, were obliterated less than a century later.

Many have been uncovered and restored in the last hundred years, some as late as the 1970s. In Leebotwood, Shropshire, a medieval painting of Christ and Mary with angels in attendance was uncovered in 1976. The Last Judgement at Blyth, Northamptonshire, probably the work of a travelling artist, restored in 1987, is recognised as one of the most complete medieval murals in the country. 

Some murals have survived intact; others are mere fragments of what might have been such as those at Shorthampton, Oxfordshire. Depictions of St. Christopher and St. Martin at Chalgrave, Bedfordshire are much faded. However, a huge mural of St. Christopher carrying the Christ-child at the 12th century church of St. Mary Magdalen, Baunton, Gloucestershire seems as fresh as the day it was painted, decorated with fish, a mermaid and a ship. It continues to offer protection to those entering and leaving the church, opposite the south door. 

Who knows how many frescoes will be discovered in country churches off the beaten track? only time will tell.

  I love this novella and read it again recently with a book group. I first came across it nearly twenty years ago and it set me off on a trail to discover medieval wall paintings across the country, and later in northern Italy.

Recently I  suffered a shocking and heart-breaking bereavement of a close relative. As I start to read again,  this novel is perfect: it is a sad, wistful story set in a time of hardship and uncertainty; I find its gentle  bleakness strangely comforting.

We can ask and ask but we can’t have again what once seemed ours forever - the way things looked, that church alone in the fields, a bed on a belfry floor, a remembered voice, the touch of a hand, a loved face. They’ve gone and you can only wait for the pain to pass.