Next to Nature: A Lifetime in the English Countryside

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Through his work at the library he met Christine Nash when she was looking for the score of Idomeneo. Blythe, the eldest of six children, spent his entire life living within fifty miles of Acton, in rural Suffolk, where he was born into a family of farm labourers. Blythe has long championed the poet John Clare, and there are similarities, as Olivia Laing observes, in Blythe’s “attentive and unsentimental” view of the countryside. Its placement, at the end of a long dirt track, provides a sanctuary away from an increasingly mechanised world, and allows Ronal to continue to revel in the joys of the natural world. An indication of just how prescient Ronald had been was demonstrated in 2004 when he met Sir Peter Hall and Akenfield cast members Peggy Cole and Garrow Shand at Hoo Church to shoot extras for the DVD release of the film.

Next to Nature: A Lifetime in the English Countryside (Audio

Everyone not only chatters loudly about everyone else, but also bursts to share their private lives with as many as possible, mainly via social media, which Ronald Blythe would surely deplore, if indeed he knows what social media is. He’s certainly saying to us, ‘This may be a way of life that’s passing, and it’s not perfect, but you’re going to be much worse off if you’re not ready to learn from it, so let me help you learn from it.

I am unsure if he has travelled abroad, but if he has it cannot have been extensively, often or for long and you will be hard put to find a word he has written about it. I think we did the film at exactly the right time - although we didn't know it then - because it captured a world on the cusp of very great change.

Next to Nature by Ronald Blythe | Hachette UK Next to Nature by Ronald Blythe | Hachette UK

He has always lived among artists, poets, occasionally musicians, as well as working countrymen and faithful churchgoers. His friend Richard Mabey notes in an introduction that these columns resemble Virginia Woolf’s ideal diary, which she felt should be “like some old desk” full of odds and ends, which in retrospect refines itself “into a mould, transparent enough to reflect the light of our life”. For Mabey, Blythe possesses a “watchful, curious, compassionate, unifying and gratefully amazed vision of life”. The Age of Illusion, a collection of essays exploring the social history of life in England between the wars, appeared in 1963.To immerse yourself in this East Anglian year is be reminded of why we love and value the rhythms and realities of rural life. Sensing a need to sit at the feet of this rural Gamaliel and slowly untwist the wisdom in each precious strand, I read for a second time, with a notebook and pen by my side, jotting down facts, quotes, things to enquire further about, and simply to play with the prose. It is important that we continue to promote these adverts as our local businesses need as much support as possible during these challenging times. If you would like to change your settings or withdraw consent at any time, the link to do so is in our privacy policy accessible from our home page. Nearly 15 million people watched Akenfield when it was broadcast on London Weekend Television in early 1975.

Next to Nature: A Lifetime in the English Countryside

Akenfield, a portrait of a rural life rapidly disappearing from view, was immediately acclaimed as a classic when it was published in 1969. Blythe came to wide public attention in 1969 with his book Akenfield, about life in a fictional Suffolk village (the name based partly on Akenham), later made into a magnificent film by Peter Hall – another Suffolk man.

Early morning in the heatwave, the air still and sullen, the trees cardboard shapes, the birds silent.