Next to Nature: A Lifetime in the English Countryside

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I fully realise that these writings were originally written for the Church Times, but I maybe wasn't expecting quite so much of it.

He was a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and was awarded their prestigious Benson Medal in 2006.And thus does Ronnie himself become the same as his beloved George Herbert and Thomas Hardy: a companion through the tragedy and beauty of human life and a witness to a world charged with the grandeur of God.

Yes, among other things, it’s a paean to the quiet, diffused but real religion of rural life; but, that itself is inextricably linked with observation of life through the seasons (and, as Muslims continually point out, if more Christians actually “lived” their religion there would be wider ground for mutual respect and dialogue.The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. This was a 2022 Christmas present, signed by the centenarian author, now no longer with us, alas, having died in January of this year. I imagined him reading them by lamplight, just as I read when I was a boy, the twin wicks faintly waving inside the Swan glass.

Beginning with the arrival of snow on New Year’s Day and ending with Christmas carols sung in the village church, Next to Nature invites us to witness a simple life richly lived. All the charm, wonder, eccentricity and vigour of country life is here in these pages, and told with such engaging directness, detail and colour . James, Holst, Coleridge are still presences, death notwithstanding, but the fields grow ever emptier of people, the villages more and more separate from their surroundings - something Blythe laments, even while being old enough to be well aware of the privations that came with agricultural life as it used to be. I was rather taken in by a glowing review in The Guardian by Patrick Barkham, whom I rate very highly, and the involvement of Richard Mabey.The independent-minded quarterly magazine that combines good looks, good writing and a personal approach.