A Countryman's Tale

London: Constable. Very Good/Very Good. 1973. First Edition. Hard Cover. 8vo 0094589003 Dust jacket complete, unclipped. Original cloth boards with bright gilt titling on spine. Map end papers. No ownership marks. Illustrated by Hector McDonnell. Minor foxing on a few page tips. 288 pages clean and tight. A countryman's tale is the story of Eydon, in Northamptonshire, a village that existed before Domesday Book, and in many respects a microcosm of rural England. A family memoir as well as a village history, it is the fruit of a long lifetime of curiosity and diligent research. It explains the drastic effects of the Enclosures in the eighteenth century on the lives of country people, and the other historic influences which have made an English village what it is today. The author has a remarkable gift for bringing the past to life. Born at Eydon in 1889, he left school at fourteen, worked for his father and later for other employers as a tailor. He served in the Great War (chiefly in Gibraltar), married and raised a family, and immersed himself in local affairs as a Parish Councillor for forty years, and as a Wesleyan lay preacher. Every page of his story is stamped with independence and with an unflagging curiosity about his fellow men. His enthusiasms and prejudices are plain to see, and there is no trace either of sentimentality or sycophancy in his tale. Steeped in the virtues born of necessity - and of cruel poverty - he enables the reader to understand, and share, his devotion to his village and his native fields. .