‘After a winter of fires, we praise the sun, our guaranteed smokeless fuel, as it rises every day higher over a perspex roof to warm my old pub settle in a sheltered nook. One more day – just one more day of clear, if frozen, sun, and the forsythia in here will burst into bloom.’
Greetings from Hoxton Square where we’ve been basking in the early spring sun and taking pleasure in the daffodils dotting our routes to the office. To celebrate the official coming of Spring in the meteorological calendar and help usher in the soon-to-be post-6 p.m. sunset, we thought it only right to turn to the writing of Adrian Bell in his Spring Countryman’s Notebook.
In the Spring volume of this charming series, Bell takes us into the East Anglian countryside as the spring rains gather and the turbulent winds of March give way to the seeding of April. This was a landscape Bell grew to love when he became a farmer there soon after the First World War and joining him in his wanderings is a magical experience – as it must have been for the readers of the Eastern Daily Press, who followed Bell’s regular column for thirty years between 1950 and 1980. Today his pieces have an extra element of nostalgia for, as he wanders, relishes and ruminates, Bell is recording a world that was fast disappearing.
Please read on for an extract and links to other recommended reads: from tales of life in a village hardware shop to a beautifully illustrated retelling of an Arthurian legend.
With best wishes from the SF staff
Izzy, Isabel, Edie, Rebecca & Jennie
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