‘For anyone who has read Cider with Rosie, Lee’s descriptive powers require little introduction . . . ’ – Justin Marozzi on the writing of Laurie Lee
Greetings not from Hoxton Square, but from the market town of Otley in Yorkshire, where the office staff have sojourned to visit the craftspeople at Smith Settle, the printers and bookbinders behind Slightly Foxed. We’ll be out of the office today, seeing first-hand everything that goes into the creation of our books, but will be back at our desks on Monday morning to reply to any emails and take calls as usual.
This week, with summer in full swing and the sun beating down all over the country, we thought it only appropriate to highlight the aptly named As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning by Laurie Lee.
When Lee set out on foot from his home in the Gloucestershire village of Slad one midsummer morning in 1935 he knew he was saying farewell to the idyllic country boyhood that he would later capture so unforgettably in Cider with Rosie. He was 19 and off to see the world with only his violin for company. He was aiming for London but decided to go via Southampton because he had never seen the sea. And so began a year of wandering that would take him from the north of Spain south to the Mediterranean.
As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning is a warm, golden book, but this brilliant evocation of the vanished Spain of the 1930s is unsentimentally observed and darkly haunting, like a painting by Goya.
It has also come to our attention that an exciting production based on Lee’s memoirs will be taking place next week. Red Sky at Sunrise combines Lee’s writing with musical arrangements to bring his world vividly to life. You may like to find out more about this event further down the email.
Please scroll on to read an article by Justin Marozzi about As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning, originally featured in Slightly Foxed Issue 69, and explore further reading recommendations.
With best wishes, as ever, from the SF staff
Isabel, Rebecca, Edie, Ruth & Jennie
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