Most of Adrian Bell’s best-known books – Corduroy, Silver Ley, The Cherry Tree, Men and the Fields, Apple Acre – were written before the end of the Second World War. From 1950 onwards his books were fewer and further between and, aside from his autobiography, My Own Master (1961), did not quite find the audience of his earlier work.
However, ‘A Countryman’s Notebook’, a column which ran almost unbroken from 1950 to 1980 in Suffolk and Norfolk’s long-serving local paper, the Eastern Daily Press, did become very popular. This association began after Lilias Rider Haggard – who had written ‘A Countrywoman’s Notebook’ for the paper since 1936 – announced that she was ‘all written out’. Bell was approached to continue the series and the resulting essays, almost 1,600 of them in total, represent by far the most significant output of his writing in the second half of his life. It is surprising, therefore, that only a tiny fraction of them have been republished since they first appeared.
Before a 19-year-old Bell left London to begin his farming apprenticeship in Suffolk, he had ambitions to write poetry. T hose familiar with his books know that poetry weaves a fine and lyrical thread through his prose. This thread is even more apparent in these beautifully crafted essays – a form that lends itself to poetic musings and more finely tuned prose. George Ewart Evans, author of Ask the Fellows Who Cut the Hay (1956), wrote that they not only portray ‘an arresting juxtaposition of topics and images that give to each a new dimension’ but are also expressed with a taut economy that has all the virtues of poetry. In Evans’s view, they present ‘more substance in a few hundred words than we get from ten thousand in many a fat book of philosophy’. Like the practice of the rural craftsmen and women whom Bell so admired, his own craft of writing evolved with experience and reflection. For him, the essay became the perfect form for the expression of his observations of rural life.
When he was asked about the process of writing these pieces, he said: ‘I try not to be too facetious or avuncular, and I try to put very little of myself in it. What I try to do is to show a unique moment which will never come again. It is like putting a framework around a moment of life, just as the French Impressionists did.’ The essays often start with an aspect of local rural life – either in the present or the past. In approaching his subject, Bell’s style is frequently expansive, taking time to consider it from many angles, before returning full circle to his theme. This enables him to craft elegant essays that are both impressionistic and specific in their portrayal of the ‘moment in life’ he wishes to capture.
In some ways, they also read like familiar letters. Bell was a great admirer of the letter form, and throughout his life enjoyed reading editions of collected letters from various writers. One of the reasons ‘A Countryman’s Notebook’ became so popular, and fostered such a loyal readership, was his ability to address an audience, and for that audience to feel a connection with Bell and his sensitive observations. The appeal of his later work, and the relationship he created with his readers, is summed up by one of his contemporaries, the journalist and writer Clement Court: ‘Bell writes always of the ordinary things, of the seasons, of memories, of rain and laughter. Gentleness fits him naturally, just as the purity of his words opens our eyes to a life all around us which we might otherwise never have seen.’
His exquisite expression of these ‘ordinary things’ first convinced me that the opening volume of his ‘Notebook’ should start in winter rather than a more colourful season. Having myself grown up in a farming family, I wanted to reflect the rhythm of a countryman’s year, and there is no better time to begin than in the quiet after the harvest. November is a time for pause, to take stock and begin planning for the months ahead: a time of reflection. But as one year ends and another begins, it is also a time for anticipating new horizons, and another spring.
Upon reading Bell’s winter essays (comprising nearly 400), I was therefore reassured that they provide the most appropriate introduction to the riches of his ‘Notebook’. His writing during these months certainly opens our eyes to ‘a life which we might otherwise never have seen’, focusing on details of a season often overlooked, but appreciated more keenly when they are brought to our attention. As his autumns drifted into deepening winters, his weekly observations of the subtle changes he saw around him meant the arrangement of the essays in this collection fell, almost organically, into place: A Countryman’s Winter Notebook would tell the story of a season told across thirty years. To me, and to those many readers whose lives these articles were once a part of, this story could be told by no one better than Adrian Bell.
Therefore, I hope a new generation will enjoy this selection as much as their original readers did, and the journey through his countryman’s years will hopefully continue through spring, summer and autumn with further volumes. For if Bell can present the winters of his life with the sensitivity, gentle humour and beauty that we see in this collection, what other delights await us within the yellowing but timeless pages of the lovingly collected archives that reside in his beloved East Anglia?
So whether Bell is admiring the beauty of autumn in ‘The Fall of the Leaf’, dreaming of taking to a frozen midwinter lake in ‘The Skaters’, bringing to life the sights and smells of marmalade-making in ‘The House of Orange’, or anticipating spring in ‘The Snowdrop Garden’, these wonderful essays share that which is common to all his writing – a deep appreciation of the small moments of each passing day.
About the contributor
Richard Hawking is the author of At the Field’s Edge: Adrian Bell and the English Countryside and chairman of the Adrian Bell Society, and he has introduced and selected a collection of Adrian Bell’s Eastern Daily Press newspaper columns, published by Slightly Foxed as A Countryman’s Winter Notebook.
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