BB [Denys Watkins-Pitchford]. Articles in Slightly Foxed literary review magazine

- Search for:
0
0

[Denys Watkins-Pitchford]: Brendon Chase, [25] 31; [59] 31;The Little Grey Men & Down the Bright Stream, [55] 31

Browse articles

Inspire a love of reading | Slightly Foxed Cubs

Today, 2 April, is both Hans Christian Andersen’s birthday and International Children’s Book Day, which is celebrated each year to inspire a love of reading and to call attention to children’s literature. Not that we need an excuse to do so here at SF HQ, of course. However, we thought it only fitting to shine the spotlight on our series of Slightly Foxed Cubs this weekend. These beautifully produced collectable children’s books strike a nostalgic chord with many older readers and introduce a younger generation to writers whose marvellous books have, unaccountably, been allowed to slip out of print. Bound in coloured cloth, with printed endpapers and original illustrations, the Cubs make ideal presents for the young and young at heart. Whether you wish to escape into nature with BB, venture back to Roman Britain with Rosemary Sutcliff, join up the dots of history with Ronald Welch or begin to build a library for a bookworm by picking a few titles by each author (or collecting the full set at once) we have books, bundles and offers to satisfy all readers and occasions.

‘I love the nature writing of BB’

Reverend Richard Coles

‘I love the nature writing of BB (Denys Watkins-Pitchford), who grew up in a vicarage near mine in Northamptonshire, and snap up every copy of Brendon Chase I find in secondhand bookshops.’ From Reverend Richard Coles’s ‘Books that made me’, Guardian

By Folly Brook

Rohan Candappa on BB, Brendon Chase

Time is linear. One thing happens, then another, then another. But while time itself may be linear, our memory of it is not. Of course we can order our memories in a linear, sort-by-date, fashion, but we can also sort by importance, by emotion and even (speaking as someone who grew up in the 1970s) by dodgy haircut. And since you are reading a literary magazine you, like me, can probably sort your memories by books – you can pick a book from your bookshelves, start to browse, and be magically transported not only to the world within the book, but also to the world you were living in when you first read it.

Episode 13: Nature & Story

The Slightly Foxed Podcast

In the parochial lies the universal, or does it? Join us on a trip to the British countryside as we plough into the matter of nature, landscape and the rural world in literature to find out more. Together with Juliet Blaxland, author of Wainwright Prize shortlisted The Easternmost House, and Jay Armstrong of Elementum Journal, the Slightly Foxed Editors and host Philippa share tales of living on the edge of eroding cliffs, pioneering bird photographers, ancient arboreal giants, guerrilla rewilding and favourite loam and lovechild comfort reads. In this month’s forage through the magazine’s archives, we go down to the Folly Brook to explore a vanishing world with ‘BB’ and his little grey men and, to finish, there are the usual wide-ranging recommendations for books to take your reading off the beaten track.

‘Almost every page has a treat for the senses . . .’

Patrick Barkham, Guardian

‘A comfort read must be a constant sensory delight and it is here that Brendon Chase really excels. Almost every page has a treat for the senses – wood smoke, the discovery of a an iridescent purple emperor butterfly, or wild swimming. And through the inadvertent, ecstatic discoveries of the grownups chasing the boys, BB shows how adults can rediscover these pleasures too . . .’

Forest School

Helena Drysdale on BB, Brendon Chase

It’s the end of the Easter holidays, and Robin, John and Harold Hensman can’t face returning to their boarding-school. Their ‘people’ are in India, and for years they’ve been entrusted to the care of their fussy maiden aunt, assisted by the vicar. Banchester isn’t bad as English public schools go, but they are country boys who dread being trapped in a classroom when summer approaches and the great outdoors calls. They hatch a plan. They will escape and hide out like Robin Hood and his merry men in the eleven-thousand-acre forest of Brendon Chase . . .

Northamptonshire’s Ideal Countrymen

Saturday 21 & Sunday 22 July 2018 Lamport Hall, Northamptonshire The BB Society and the H. E. Bates Group brought together accomplished authors, artists, historians, actors and others at Lamport Hall to celebrate the county’s literary and artistic heritage of ‘BB’ and ‘HE’. There were also displays of pictures, books and memorabilia, as well as film shows and illustrated talks throughout the weekend.

Beside the Folly Brook

Helena Drysdale on BB, The Little Grey Men & Down the Bright Stream

In 1970 I told BB how much I loved his books. I wrote the letter sitting at the window in a house tucked into a Devon cliff, with pine woods behind and the sea in front. I’m sitting there now. It’s the sort of place BB would have adored, the recesses of undergrowth and exposed headlands teeming with wildlife. This, I imagined, was the setting for The Little Grey Men (1942). Here were all the ingredients, including wood dogs (foxes), fernbears (badgers) and above all a winding stream. In my mind this was the Folly Brook, up which the last gnomes in England travel on their heroic quest to find their missing brother, and down which they flee in their boat the Jeanie Deans, in the 1948 sequel, Down the Bright Stream.

This is a story about the last gnomes in Britain . . .

BB, The Little Grey Men

This is a story about the last gnomes in Britain. They are honest-to-goodness gnomes, none of your baby, fairy-book tinsel stuff, and they live by hunting and fishing, like the animals and birds, which is only proper and right . . .

If you have read The Little Grey Men you will know all about Oak Tree House and the Stream People . . .

BB, Down the Bright Stream

If you have read The Little Grey Men you will know all about Oak Tree House and the Stream People, and how three gnomes – Dodder (a lame gnome), Baldmoney and Sneezewort – went up the Folly Brook to look for their lost brother Cloudberry, and how they discovered him, after many adventures, fit and well and full of high spirits . . .

Buy related issues of Slightly Foxed

Slightly Foxed Issue 59

Issue 59 (1 Sep 2018) (Autumn)

_From£15

Gift wrap available
Subscriber discount
In stock

Slightly Foxed Issue 55

Issue 55 (1 Sep 2017) (Autumn)

_From£15

Gift wrap available
Subscriber discount
In stock

Braithwaite Lane, detail, Simon Palmer - Slightly Foxed Issue 25

Issue 25 (1 Mar 2010) (Spring)

_From£15

Gift wrap available
Subscriber discount
In stock

Buy related books or goods

A Set of BB Books - Slightly Foxed Cubs

A Set of BB Books: The Little Grey Men, Down the Bright Stream & Brendon Chase

BB (Denys Watkins-Pitchford)

_From£51

Gift wrap available
Subscriber discount
In stock

BB, The Little Grey Men & Down the Bright Stream - Slightly Foxed Cubs

The Little Grey Men & Down the Bright Stream

BB (Denys Watkins-Pitchford)

_From£36

Gift wrap available
Subscriber discount
In stock

BB, Brendon Chase - Slightly Foxed Cubs

Brendon Chase

BB (Denys Watkins-Pitchford)

_From£18

Gift wrap available
Subscriber discount
In stock

Slightly Foxed Cubs Library

Starter Library

Ronald Welch, BB, Rosemary Sutcliff

_From£287

Gift wrap available
Subscriber discount
In stock

Slightly Foxed Children’s Books Subscription: Ronald Welch, Rosemary Sutcliff, BB - Slightly Foxed Cubs

Slightly Foxed Cubs Subscription

Ronald Welch, BB, Rosemary Sutcliff

_From£36

Gift wrap available
Subscriber discount
Sold Out
Bundle Sold Out

Sign up to our e-newsletter

Sign up for dispatches about new issues, books and podcast episodes, highlights from the archive, events, special offers and giveaways.