Blythe Spirit: The Remarkable Life of Ronald Blythe

by Ian Collins

Ronald Blythe has been called the finest rural historian of our times and one of England's greatest country writers. He spent his entire life - over 100 years of it - living in and around Suffolk, and was best known for his bestselling fictionalised account of rural Suffolk, Akenfield. But for a writer known for his confessional style and intimate, sensitive meditations on nature, religion and life, he revealed little about himself and his private life.

In this revealing biography, Ian Collins draws on unparalleled access to letters and writings, as well as several decades of friendship, to depict the 'real Ronnie'. From his challenging childhood, growing up in poverty in Acton, and an education consisting of voraciously reading library books, to his ill-fated time serving in the military, to his sexuality and faith. It is a celebration of a beloved writer and a fascinating portrait of a complex man.

Genres: Biography

390 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 7, 2024

Reviews

[Paul]

“Stumbling upon lovers, as Ronnie later told his writer friend Roger Deakin, was a woodland tradition. “All country children were conceived in woods, he said, because the cottages were simply too full of other people. Children, grandparents and others lived hugger-mugger in the cramped rooms, so couples adjourned to the woods for privacy.””
This is an excellent biography of Ronald Blythe, author of Akenfield, portraying an English village after the Second World War. He wrote a great deal more, but Akenfield brought him fame and recognition (something he wasn’t keen on. He lived in Suffolk for all of his hundred years plus apart from a brief spell in London.
Blythe was gay and active in a time when it was very dangerous to be so. It was something he never hid. His approach was matter of fact:
“I would go with almost anyone really, sex meant nothing to me: being a writer was everything.”
Collins details Blythe’s life, he was a librarian for a while before he became a full-time writer. He also ran the Aldeburgh festival for a year with Imogen Holst, he knew Britten and Pears well. He had many close friends. He was close friends with the artist John Nash and his wife Christine who also lived in Suffolk. As their health declined Ronnie moved in with them to act as a carer so a nursing home would not be required. There’s a fair amount of name-dropping going on and moving in literary circles Blythe knew a lot of people. One of his more interesting friendships was with Patricia Highsmith, the novelist. She was notoriously nomadic and so they often communicated by letter. They did live together for a period. They shared a bed and talked about gay love and some of their romantic friendships. They even made love a couple of times, both wondering what it was like to “bat for the other side”. They remained close until Patricia’s death.
In contrast with all this Ronnie was also very spiritual. He wasn’t entirely sure about belief in God and the afterlife but he found the liturgy of the Prayer Book very helpful. He wrote a column for the Church Times for over 30 years and ended up as a lay reader, sometimes preaching.
I found it a fascinating read and it’s been a long time since I read Akenfield, so I must look it out again.

[Colin]

Ronald Blythe, born in 1922 into rural poverty in Suffolk, lived a long and incredibly rich life, dying only a few miles from his birthplace in 2023. Ian Collins’ masterful biography traces Blythe’s century and his passage from a farm worker’s cottage through a remarkably productive and esteemed literary career, a route opened out to him by his discovery of books that demonstrated a wider world of possibilities for a boy whose formal education extended no further than elementary school. Collins, erstwhile arts correspondent for the Eastern Daily Press, and biographer of several important figures in the East Anglian arts scene, was a close friend of Blythe’s in his later years, and his choice to write the story of his life. He has done a quite brilliant job, tracing such a long and often quite solitary life through an enormous coterie of friends: poets, artists, composers, performers, naturalists, churchgoers, tradesmen and many others. Ronald Blythe must have been the only person to have included Benjamin Britten, Patricia Highsmith, John Nash and Richard Mabey in his circle of friends. What shines through most of all, though, is Blythe’s eye for and delight in the joys of everyday life and the landscape of the Suffolk/Essex border that he loved. That great art can spring from a firm rootedness in a single location as much as from a cosmopolitan worldliness is a moving and heartening insight into the creative impulse.

[Mervyn Whyte]

I have to admit, I haven't read any of Ronald Blythe's books, but a review of Ian Collins' brilliant - and at times, beautiful - biography of the man took my fancy. And after my last read about the Chernobyl disaster, this was escapism at its very best. Yes, there's the grinding poverty of the early years (covered up by Blythe). But after that one finds oneself in a seemingly never-ending idyll of fine weather, gardening, food, books and oak-beamed cottages. I'm sure some of it has been overly-romanticised. And there are flaws. I would've liked to have known more about Blythe's family. And like all biographies, the later years - of which there were many (Blythe lived until he was a hundred) - are rushed. This last flaw is a particular problem. Not only did Blythe become more of a personality as time went on, but he also became more prolific as a writer. Indeed, Akenfield and The View in Winter aside, most of Blythe's writing seemed to come when he was in his 80s. Nevertheless, Collins has still produced a rounded portrait (including all the sex Blythe indulged in). And the writing is fantastic. Highly recommended.

[Elizabeth]

Very well written and readable. I enjoyed the beginning about Ronnie’s early life and parents and the ending about his ‘Word from Wormingford’ years most. The middle section was interesting at times but a challenge mostly because my knowledge of/interest in the people Ronnie knew is very low. I’m not all that familiar with British history or social conditions past the mid-1950s. His development as a writer from a very humble background is fascinating. He was basically self taught and became educated in the best possible way. He was also intensely connected to his native Suffolk and championed rural life in a very undemonstrative way. Ronnie himself was also such a fascinating person. He was so sane, so untormented, so private and yet so generous of his time and talents. He saw all life as a gift, which is what I’ve always loved about his essays. His attention to the detail of the luminous present is a continuing gift to me. I hope his writing is long enjoyed and celebrated.

[Kitty]

A warm-hearted and well-researched biography of a writer whose life spanned a whole century. Ronald Blythe was born in 1922 and grew up in poverty, his father a farm labourer (having survived Gallipoli) before mechanisation - horses pulled the ploughs and sugar beet was cut by hand. Yet his love of writing led him to a job in the library, where he educated himself, and before long met a series of locally based artists and writers (John and Christine Nash, Benjamin Britten, Cedric Morris). His breakthrough book was 'Akenfield'(1969), a fictionalised portrait of his corner of Suffolk, based on oral histories, and later made into a film. The author, Ian Collins, began a close friendship with Blythe in the 1980s, and so just as the later years of a biography sometimes tail off, his very personal reminiscences come into play to make this one especially intimate and touching.

[Jane]

I knew absolutely nothing about 'Ronnie' Blythe until I read a review of this book. It sparked my interest, partly because I live in a neighbouring county, but mostly because of his extraordinarily long and productive writing life. Very much a loner, he rarely moved far from his rural origins in Suffolk and yet seemed to know everyone of consequence in the artistic and literary world. He was close friends with Benjamin Britten, Imogen Holst and became involved in the Aldeburgh Festival quite by accident. His friendship with Christine and John Nash sustained decades, so much so that they bequeathed their home to him. He had a surprising relationship with Patricia Highsmith These are to name but a very few. Very much a spiritual man, in later life he became a lay preacher. He was loved and respected by everyone who knew him, but essentially a private man who accepted his sexuality with no sense of shame. His affinity with the natural world and the poetry of John Clare sustained him throughout his long life. This is an absorbing and effecting read.

[Thomas Lyons]

I’ll likely come back and provide further in my thoughts on this, but I absolutely loved reading this. I have been captivated by Ronald Blythe’s writing since reading Next to Nature, which has given way to me reading many more of his titles. His writing is so much about his surroundings, yet not wholly about himself, I was intrigued to know more about him.

Throughout his life I gathered, from reading, he was fairly guarded and private. To then learn about the difficulties he faced, yet the huge success he made of himself, whilst maintaining humility was intriguing. Ian Collins has done a fantastic job of writing the life story of his friend and emphasising the successes that likely wouldn’t have been pushed forwards otherwise.

[Ruth Brumby]

Well written and structured, emerging from an intimate knowledge of the subject. The book verges on sentimentality and on name dropping, but both are managed and seem appropriate in the context. I very much enjoyed finding out more about this author and his connections and about the area of Sugffolk where he lived.

[Suzanne Beard]

Just wonderful. Fascinating life, well told and a great tribute to an amazing writer.

[Richard Skeates]

Wonderful.

[Matthew Cartledge]

I really enjoyed this, it set Blythe perfectly in the Suffolk landscape and 20th century history that was such a feature of his writing. The author strikes a nice balance between quotations and references from RB’s books and articles, and interviews with people who had known him. It will definitely send me back to the books, starting with the ones I haven’t read yet. ‘The View From Winter’ next I think.