ENGLISH VILLAGE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 491, 19 November 1948, Page 12

ENGLISH VILLAGE

STILL GLIDES THE STREAM. By Flora Thompson; drawings by Lynton Lamb. Oxford University Press. (Our copy through the British Council). F you say of the English village that the more it changes the more it remains the same thing, this is about as true as most epigrams. It would seem to be as true of Restharrow, in Oxfordshire, the theme of this book, as of any other village. Restharrow, we presume, is an imaginary name, but we take it that the village itself is built up largely from Miss Thompson’s personal knowledge, which she has already used in the acclaimed Lark Rise to Candleford., The chronicle begins at the present day, when there is no longer a blacksmith, a stonemason, or a tailor, and fhe old sweet shop with its bottle-glass window has become the General Store. There is a district nurse, and in place of a schoolmistress in a lean-to home of two rooms at the school, a schoolmaster lives in a proper house and runs a mower over his lawn. However, it takes more than two world wars to uproot the ancient foundations of English rural life. Miss Finch, an elderly retired teacher, returns to her birthplace, and recaptures much of what happened sixty years before. She was the daughter of the village carpenter, who belonged to the class known as the "comfortable poor." In respect to conveniences, her home at the time of Victoria’s first jubilee would be shocking to the eyes of 1948, but it was comfortable, living was satisfying, and there was competence and character. The chronicle is ‘of the everyday life of the (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) | village in those faraway, apparently very safe times, with its ignorance, prejudices, old traditions, quarrels and friendships, innate independence of spirit, and nutty commonsense. In particular it is a tale of children, among whom Miss Thompson is thoroughly at home. The gentry are there,. with their soup and blankets, and their assured domination-up to a point, but they come into these village doings comparatively little.. The young squire’s friendship with the. bailiff’s attractive daughter does not go the length of seduction, which no doubt will disappoint some readers and be set down as untrue to life. The charm of the book arises largely from the fact that it is written from the inside, by someone who, whether she belonged originally to "the Quality" or not, has exceptional knowledge and deep sympathy, just as she has a keen eye for the simple everyday beauties of the landscape. Miss Finch’s reflections at the end complete the quotation from which Miss Thompson takes her title-‘"and shall for ever glide." The gemerations pass, but the old rural stock, with its essential characteristics touched by experience, remains, together with the running water, the meadows and the flowers. These thoughts gave Miss Finch "an extraordinary sense of comfort and reassurance," which is surely something precious in a distracted world. This is a book to be recommended to lovers of

the by-ways of England.

A.

M.