Next to Nature: A Lifetime in the English Countryside

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But the tree has a history parallel with my own in the wild garden and I sense that I am losing part of myself as the boughs fall…’ (Blythe, 2022) The book begins with an introduction by Blythe’s friend, the distinguished writer and broadcaster, Richard Mabey, in which he, rightly, gives a brief biography of Blythe and prepares the reader for what is to come, but what is most touchingly evident is the respect and admiration from Mabey (educated through independent schools and an Alma Mater of St Catherine’s College, Oxford) for Blythe (largely a product of self-education), and the mutual acceptance of unwavering and enduring friendship between the two, despite diverging thoughts on some salient issues. Blythe was a Lay Reader in the Church of England who brushed off suggestions that he might become ordained with the counter-argument that laity have a specific place to play in the work of the church, as part of the quietly gathered congregation, rather than standing outside and above their number – he was ahead of his time; it is only in recent days that the church is slowly opening up to the importance of laity. Mabey claims no organised interest in faith. Blythe’s views on farming and land management occasionally differed from Mabey’s own, but both had the preservation of the countryside and its eco-system at their cores. The things they had in common far outweighed their dissimilarities, and I sensed a deeply warming humility in reading Mabey’s summation of their friendship,

Next To Nature by Ronald Blythe – Book Review

I was incessantly reading. We went to the old Repertory Theatre and then went for little meals at Neal & Robarts in the High Street - which we thought was very sophisticated. We'd go downstairs and there would be all the actors from the theatre.”Blythe has long championed the poet John Clare, and there are similarities, as Olivia Laing observes, in Blythe’s “attentive and unsentimental” view of the countryside. When he writes about “gaudy” fields of borage, Blythe knows how it is harvested and where it will be sold. “A very Clare-like knowledge, this, obtained by the steady, perpetual listening that gave Akenfield its power,” Laing writes. A life rooted in East Anglia has given Blythe a rare depth of vision. His writing is attuned to the physicality of existence, attentive to the world around him, and always listening to people and other species, as here, in June: The Nash wood engraving that closes the December section is of a Bee Orchid, a commonly known British wildflower that is becoming scarce, but is most often found inhabiting the meadows and farmlands of Suffolk. The once common ways are diminishing, as are those who remember and tell their stories. We will not encounter the likes of Ronald Blythe again. We learn much about the man from his writing, but not all. His private life is not on public view. He has many friends, many more acquaintances, everyone seems to like him, yet he does not invite us far over his threshold. It's extraordinary that a book I wrote in 1967, which is a world away from us now, and a film made in 1973/74, can have such an amazing and very gratifying hold over people's affections.

Next to Nature by Ronald Blythe | Waterstones

East Anglian author appointed lay canon". East Anglian Daily Times. 24 March 2003 . Retrieved 12 February 2020.These adverts enable local businesses to get in front of their target audience – the local community. Although I actually haven't worked this land but I have seen the land ploughed by horses, so I have a feeling and understanding in that respect.” Akenfield, the novel, is a study of what people regarded as a timeless way-of-life, but Ronald could recognise signs of change – although resolutely unsentimental, his book was eulogy for a rural idyll that had lasted for nearly two thousand years. Shot at weekends over 18 months to accommodate the work schedules of the amateur actors the film, like the original novel, caught the unchanging nature of life in the Suffolk countryside during the early years of the 20th century. Blythe added: “A poet friend once advised me to ‘Put everything down. The total will surprise you.’ I took him at his word. For over 25 years I kept a day-book – a journal of life in a quiet corner of the English countryside. The total must run to over one million words. It has been a joy to revisit those diaries for this selection.”