Akenfield

I'm re-reading Akenfield, and being seduced by the language, the people, the countryside and above all by Ronald Blyth. I met Ronnie (I know, a bit presumptuous, but he was a friend of a friend) at the Charleston Festival a few years ago, and was enchanted, as was everybody present, by his easy loquacity, his ability to conjure up without notes images and memories from long past and recreate them as if yesteryear were just this morning. I got him to sign a copy of At The Yeoman's House, but was disappointed to find later that this new book was merely a piece of publishing artifice, a stylized cobbling together of this and that with no real substance. But I'd forgotten what a gifted writer he is, and in Akenfield, rightly hailed as a modern classic, he weaves his love of Suffolk, its people and its history into an irresistible and beautiful masterpiece.

His passion matches my own, or should it be the other way around? Anyway, I feel privileged that the village I live in remains unspoilt, intensely rural and geographically intact unlike the two villages, Debach and Charsfield, that he merges into the fictitious Akenfield. My village is the answer to an aching heart, its beauty lying not so much in idyllic cottages and farms, though there are plenty of those, as in the timeless land surrounding it, its ancient smells, its unchanging patterns. Yes, the fields may be bigger now to accommodate huge farm machinery, there may be fewer hedges, certainly the numbers of birds and wild mammals are down from half a century ago when he wrote Akenfield. But I only know the village now. And it is absolutely complete to me, a thing of wonder that I can never get enough of. I feel as if I've been heading here all my life. Ronnie says that the English have a peculiar affinity with the land, and spend a large part of their lives plotting to get back to the rural world their forebears knew. And so it is for me. I thank my lucky stars a thousand times a day that I'm here. I may be "Alone Again, Naturally" as Gilbert O'Sullivan once sang so sadly. But I wouldn't be anywhere else.

Roses and sweet peas and chocolates delivered this morning, sweet William from last weekend - I'm feeling thoroughly spoiled and cared for. Still ill, but my spirit is soaring.