Next to Nature: A Lifetime in the English Countryside

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A still from Peter Hall’s film of Akenfield. Blythe oversaw every day of filming and played a cameo as a vicar. Photograph: BFI

Next to Nature by Ronald Blythe | Waterstones Next to Nature by Ronald Blythe | Waterstones

He gained a social life cycling 15 miles to Colchester from his home in Sudbury to keep company with the young intellectuals and artists of the town – they progressed round the town’s traditional pubs having a half pint in each one putting the world to rights, expounding theories about the latest literary works they had just read, before heading home. Although I actually haven't worked this land but I have seen the land ploughed by horses, so I have a feeling and understanding in that respect.” Akenfield, the novel, is a study of what people regarded as a timeless way-of-life, but Ronald could recognise signs of change – although resolutely unsentimental, his book was eulogy for a rural idyll that had lasted for nearly two thousand years.The greatest living writer on the English countryside will celebrate his 100th birthday this week at his home, Bottengoms Farm, surrounded by the friends he calls his “dear ones”. Ronald Blythe is best known for Akenfield, his moving and intimate portrait of a Suffolk village through the lives of its residents, which became an instant classic when published in 1969. But Blythe, who has spent all his 10 decades living within 50 miles of where he was born, has also devoted millions more words – in history, fiction, and luminous essays and columns – to describe with poetry and precision not simply rural folk but the very essence of existence. Divine Landscapes: A Pilgrimage through Britain's Sacred Places (Viking, 1986) - with photos by Edwin Smith Clee, Nicholas. "Travellers' tales and home thoughts", The Guardian, 16 December 2006. Retrieved 7 November 2012. No one had much money but it was a good pub time, a great time for talking,” he recalled later. “People weren't getting drunk or anything like that. There was no music. There were just quiet places where people used to meet each other. But the tree has a history parallel with my own in the wild garden and I sense that I am losing part of myself as the boughs fall…’ (Blythe, 2022)

Ronald Blythe - Wikipedia Ronald Blythe - Wikipedia

Shot at weekends over 18 months to accommodate the work schedules of the amateur actors the film, like the original novel, caught the unchanging nature of life in the Suffolk countryside during the early years of the 20th century.He was almost as reticent about his faith, but his writing was deeply suffused in his Christian beliefs and his knowledge of the scriptures. He was a lay reader – deputising for vicars across several parishes – and became a lay canon of St Edmundsbury Cathedral, but turned down the chance to become a priest. I was incessantly reading. We went to the old Repertory Theatre and then went for little meals at Neal & Robarts in the High Street - which we thought was very sophisticated. We'd go downstairs and there would be all the actors from the theatre.” Dora Carrington: a difficult virus to get out of your system", The Independent, 24 October 1999. Retrieved 7 November 2012. It is an introduction that honours a friendship that is as rare as hen’s teeth, and writing this review following Blythe’s death, my heart goes out to Mr Mabey, who will miss walking and talking along those wildflower strewn pathways and the extraordinary gentleman he had the privilege of knowing so well.