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Men and the Fields
The drawings of John Nash perfectly match the country scene as described by Adrian Bell in this highly acclaimed portrait. In chronicling the life of the fields the author, with a sure touch and in beautiful prose, evokes a bygone world of farmers and shepherds, land owners and countrymen.
A New Year's Eve party in an old farmhouse yields a host of memories. As the year's hours grow fewer, the older people do the talking, the younger ones listen, and an England far older than the passing year is resurrected. One old lady tells of how the river was used for bringing chalk and coal to the farms. Another storyteller recalls how they used to go to Christmas parties in the country when he was a child. And so on, through the months of the year - the seasons unfolding in a highly personalised way as man and nature come together in a book to keep and to treasure.
A New Year's Eve party in an old farmhouse yields a host of memories. As the year's hours grow fewer, the older people do the talking, the younger ones listen, and an England far older than the passing year is resurrected. One old lady tells of how the river was used for bringing chalk and coal to the farms. Another storyteller recalls how they used to go to Christmas parties in the country when he was a child. And so on, through the months of the year - the seasons unfolding in a highly personalised way as man and nature come together in a book to keep and to treasure.
- GenresNatureNonfictionHistory
160 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1939
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87 people want to read
About the author
Adrian Bell
60 books13 followersAdrian Bell is one of the best-known of modern writers dealing with the countryside. His books are noted for their close observations of country life.
The son of a newspaper editor, Bell was born in London and educated at Uppingham School in Rutland. At the age of 19 he ventured into the countryside in Hundon, Suffolk, to learn about agriculture, and he farmed in various locations over the next sixty years, including the rebuilding of a near-derelict 89-acre smallholding at Redisham.
The son of a newspaper editor, Bell was born in London and educated at Uppingham School in Rutland. At the age of 19 he ventured into the countryside in Hundon, Suffolk, to learn about agriculture, and he farmed in various locations over the next sixty years, including the rebuilding of a near-derelict 89-acre smallholding at Redisham.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
December 30, 2013
Even before the two wars, this book is haunted by ghosts of an already vanishing world of traditional farming and rural community. Bell's lyrical, ambling, elegiac record of its remnants are a precious and poignant piece of vernacular history.
The book goes around a year, beginning in January and ending in December, rising and falling with the seasonal rhythm. I love non-linear narratives more and more; cyclical (or helical) story forms work differently on me; I connect with them better; they seem to change my mind more, to sink more soothingly and permanently into my psyche.
Encounters with farming folk who share their anecdotes and views, and scenes natural and communal, are the small events structuring the loosely woven skein of his roving.
By showing what once was and how it changed, Bell provides an opportunity to reflect on what is possible and desirable for agriculture and countryside life. As long as we retell and absorb and take inspiration from them, histories are living reservoirs of knowing, offering the power to transform our present.
The book goes around a year, beginning in January and ending in December, rising and falling with the seasonal rhythm. I love non-linear narratives more and more; cyclical (or helical) story forms work differently on me; I connect with them better; they seem to change my mind more, to sink more soothingly and permanently into my psyche.
Encounters with farming folk who share their anecdotes and views, and scenes natural and communal, are the small events structuring the loosely woven skein of his roving.
By showing what once was and how it changed, Bell provides an opportunity to reflect on what is possible and desirable for agriculture and countryside life. As long as we retell and absorb and take inspiration from them, histories are living reservoirs of knowing, offering the power to transform our present.
May 27, 2021
A beautifully written book that gives the reader glimpses of rural life and its central characters pre-second world war. This is no lament but an objective account of those unseen who worked this land in harness with beast and nature. Bell was collecting oral history stories long before it was fashionable, and with his discerning farmer's eye, respect for the land and it's bounty, his work carries an authenticity that makes this book a rewarding read.
September 22, 2021
There were parts of this that I loved and were so beautifully written…and there were parts that made me sleepy. 🤣 So a decent three stars.
February 6, 2011
A book of simple treasures from the author of Corduroy (republished by Penguin in 2000) that, like those previous accounts of Lilias Rider Haggard, capture a time, a rhythm of pastoral life now lost. I love them for their wisdom and philosophy, their pace and beauty, and because Adrian is walking the fields and riverbanks of my home region.
April 4, 2014
Published 1939 with a good deal of ink devoted to the disruptive nature of the motor car, a mode of transport the author owns and uses regularly.
I guess the car was a noisy intrusion worth noting then as long used lanes were covered by tarmac and others fell into disuse to be lost forever.
This book charts the last gasp of agriculture before it became the industrial process we have come to accept it to be. Farming was in a state of depression and what seemed terminal decline.
The author does look back to a previous age but his glasses are not hopelessly rose tinted.
The writing style is uncluttered and filled with the characters he has known and the ways that the modern world is eroding what had seemed once permanent.
The fate of the Oaks in Spouses Wood, Bures, is near heartbreaking.
It does have a Suffolk focus but it is not parochial or exclusive.
This is not a book of gloom though, a lot can still speak to a modern reader. The primroses still bloom as they did and I will still hear the cuckoo and I will curse the motorcar while owning one.
I guess the car was a noisy intrusion worth noting then as long used lanes were covered by tarmac and others fell into disuse to be lost forever.
This book charts the last gasp of agriculture before it became the industrial process we have come to accept it to be. Farming was in a state of depression and what seemed terminal decline.
The author does look back to a previous age but his glasses are not hopelessly rose tinted.
The writing style is uncluttered and filled with the characters he has known and the ways that the modern world is eroding what had seemed once permanent.
The fate of the Oaks in Spouses Wood, Bures, is near heartbreaking.
It does have a Suffolk focus but it is not parochial or exclusive.
This is not a book of gloom though, a lot can still speak to a modern reader. The primroses still bloom as they did and I will still hear the cuckoo and I will curse the motorcar while owning one.
November 14, 2014
"Little Toller republishes classics of nature writing and rural life" and that was what drew me to this volume, especially with its John Nash illustrations. It was a strange experience to read. As his son says in the introduction, Adrian Bell paints with words. The book starts nowhere in particular, ends nowhere in particular, meanders in a stream of consciousness and often merely jumps topic from one paragraph to the next to the next. Taken as a whole it is not especially satisfying, but the specifics of what his eye or his ears find as he wanders interwar rural Britain can be very engaging. It is not overly sentimental either. I was amused by his wry observations about the motor car - mostly he is predictably negative but he also says it is the cars of other people that are the problem not one's own.
September 11, 2015
Written on the cusp of the Second World War by Adrian Bell the father of broadcaster and politician Martin Bell, "Men and the Fields" pays homage to a rural way of life that was swiftly disappearing. There is no particular shape to this book, it lurches from one topic to another. Sometimes, even in the same paragraph! At times the writing seems almost "stream of consciousness" in approach. The thing that binds it all together is Bell's obvious love of nature. The descriptions of trees, plants, and landscape are beautiful. The whole book meanders along like a brook through the Suffolk landscape.
Most of of my paternal ancestors were agricultural workers from East-Anglia, so it was almost like hearing their voices breaking through to the present and imparting a little wisdom to this city boy.
Most of of my paternal ancestors were agricultural workers from East-Anglia, so it was almost like hearing their voices breaking through to the present and imparting a little wisdom to this city boy.
July 13, 2021
I loved this series of articles about the travels of Martin Bell's father round the West and East of England on the cusp of WWII. In 1938/9 at the time of his travels agriculture was not doing well, but Adrian Bell was not to know what a powerhouse it would have to become to feed the country.
November 15, 2014
Fascinating book detailing stories of rural decline and modernisation in the 1930's, really enjoyable read and Bell paints a good picture of the countryside and the people he meets
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews