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kittiwakeIn deference to the horsey events which I was intent on witnessing, I was wearing my box-cloth gaiters, and as I bicycled out of the unhunted Butley district I felt that I was
indeed on my way to a region where things really happened. In fact, I might have been off to Melton Mowbray, so intense were my expectations. As the train puffed slowly into Sussex I eyed the densely wooded Dumborough country disparagingly. At the point where, so far as I could judge, there should have been a noticeable improvement, the landscape failed to adapt itself to my anticipations. The train had entered Ringwell territory, but there was
still a great deal of woodland and little open country.
This is an autobiographical novel tells the story of George Sherston, an orphan brought up by an indulgent aunt in the Weald of Kent in the late Victorian and Edwardian era. With an income of £600 per year (although his family solicitor only allows him to spend £450 of it) and still living in his aunt's house, he does not need to work, and dedicates himself to hunting and cricket. As he looks back at his younger self while writing his memoirs in 1928 it is clear that the older Sherston is now rather more fond of intellectual pursuits than his he was as a young man, and since the reader knows in advance that he will survive the Great War, I was more worried about his friends, his aunt's groom Dixon, and Sherston's horse Cockbird, who is compulsorily purchased by the government.
I was expecting this to be quite heavy going, but it's a light and breezy story of Edwardian country life only getting darker towards the end when Sherston is sent to Flanders as an infantry officers.
indeed on my way to a region where things really happened. In fact, I might have been off to Melton Mowbray, so intense were my expectations. As the train puffed slowly into Sussex I eyed the densely wooded Dumborough country disparagingly. At the point where, so far as I could judge, there should have been a noticeable improvement, the landscape failed to adapt itself to my anticipations. The train had entered Ringwell territory, but there was
still a great deal of woodland and little open country.
This is an autobiographical novel tells the story of George Sherston, an orphan brought up by an indulgent aunt in the Weald of Kent in the late Victorian and Edwardian era. With an income of £600 per year (although his family solicitor only allows him to spend £450 of it) and still living in his aunt's house, he does not need to work, and dedicates himself to hunting and cricket. As he looks back at his younger self while writing his memoirs in 1928 it is clear that the older Sherston is now rather more fond of intellectual pursuits than his he was as a young man, and since the reader knows in advance that he will survive the Great War, I was more worried about his friends, his aunt's groom Dixon, and Sherston's horse Cockbird, who is compulsorily purchased by the government.
I was expecting this to be quite heavy going, but it's a light and breezy story of Edwardian country life only getting darker towards the end when Sherston is sent to Flanders as an infantry officers.
