What do you think?
Rate this book
Water and Sky: Voices from the Riverside
Neil Sentance revisits his native Lincolnshire riverlands and fields, farms and market towns, to explore the history of his family and the landscape which shaped them. But this is not a lament for a lost world. Peopled by characters forgotten by history, it celebrates the countryside with a rare combination of lyricism and muddy realism. Water and Sky collects together Neil Sentance's 'Scenes from the Waterside', a sequence of essays which first appeared on the Caught by the River website between 2010 and 2013. Water and Sky is an original and haunting blend of nature writing, memoir and historical fiction.
- GenresNature
80 pages, Hardcover
First published August 28, 2014
22 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
July 21, 2020
Neil Sentance now lives in West Dorset, but he grew up in the 1970s in Lincolnshire and it is to that landscape that he returns to his childhood to uncover a little more of his family history and to understand how the county that shaped who they were.
He grew up a few streets from the River Witham, as he describes it ‘a place of mossy banks and murky water’ and it where they lived out the stories and adventures in their heads. He has fond memories of wooden swords and pirate battles, rope swings in the long summer and seeing the crayfish at the bottom of the pools. The nearby football ground, where dreams of league success would be dashed every week, has inevitably become a supermarket. Just down from the river was Swallows Mill, a place for catching tiddlers, and now vibrates to the sound of the kick drum as a nightclub.
The memories go back further too, his dad reminisces about Bonfire Night, building up the fire from all sorts of kindling and windfall branches and the anticipation leading up to the moment when his grandfather would light it. Tradition meant that there would be a few fireworks and red hot potatoes from the fire before tipping the ashes into the river and heading home at midnight smelling of smoke.
Before the war his grandfather had shown some talent as a fast bowler, and could be useful with a bat; however, the dreams of going professional were dashed as his father needed the help on the 200-acre farm. It was to be his life’s work, every day’s labour was visible on his hands. Did he ever wonder what his other life might have been? He never said and no one will ever know.
Another generation back and the memories of the Great War are still raw as Charles Chalk thinks of his son in the graveyard of Pas-de-Calais. A young life wasted early in the war that would never make old bones. It brings him full circle as he watches his children running around near their new home, forming their touchstones in their own landscapes.
This is a wonderful series of short stories, vignettes and essays about family life in a Lincolnshire village. Not been to the county myself, but the descriptions that Sentance has of the place make it very appealing. The partial memories of his family are like shattered glass shards, a glimpse of a whole lived. It had echoes of Cider with Rosie, but with less of the rose-tinted elements, instead, it is written with a piercing gaze coupled with the tiny details that go to make up a life. All of this sparkling writing is what Bruce Chatwin calls the ‘substance of our ‘mental soil’ – to which forever after we are bound’. It is true too, I can still remember the stamping ground of my youth crossing the red stream over at a place called Sheets Heath as clear as something that happened last week. Very highly recommended.
He grew up a few streets from the River Witham, as he describes it ‘a place of mossy banks and murky water’ and it where they lived out the stories and adventures in their heads. He has fond memories of wooden swords and pirate battles, rope swings in the long summer and seeing the crayfish at the bottom of the pools. The nearby football ground, where dreams of league success would be dashed every week, has inevitably become a supermarket. Just down from the river was Swallows Mill, a place for catching tiddlers, and now vibrates to the sound of the kick drum as a nightclub.
The memories go back further too, his dad reminisces about Bonfire Night, building up the fire from all sorts of kindling and windfall branches and the anticipation leading up to the moment when his grandfather would light it. Tradition meant that there would be a few fireworks and red hot potatoes from the fire before tipping the ashes into the river and heading home at midnight smelling of smoke.
Before the war his grandfather had shown some talent as a fast bowler, and could be useful with a bat; however, the dreams of going professional were dashed as his father needed the help on the 200-acre farm. It was to be his life’s work, every day’s labour was visible on his hands. Did he ever wonder what his other life might have been? He never said and no one will ever know.
Another generation back and the memories of the Great War are still raw as Charles Chalk thinks of his son in the graveyard of Pas-de-Calais. A young life wasted early in the war that would never make old bones. It brings him full circle as he watches his children running around near their new home, forming their touchstones in their own landscapes.
This is a wonderful series of short stories, vignettes and essays about family life in a Lincolnshire village. Not been to the county myself, but the descriptions that Sentance has of the place make it very appealing. The partial memories of his family are like shattered glass shards, a glimpse of a whole lived. It had echoes of Cider with Rosie, but with less of the rose-tinted elements, instead, it is written with a piercing gaze coupled with the tiny details that go to make up a life. All of this sparkling writing is what Bruce Chatwin calls the ‘substance of our ‘mental soil’ – to which forever after we are bound’. It is true too, I can still remember the stamping ground of my youth crossing the red stream over at a place called Sheets Heath as clear as something that happened last week. Very highly recommended.
September 9, 2022
This was a short but beautifully written history of a Lincolnshire family.
Through various characters in his life (mother, father, grandfather, great grandfather), Neil Sentance tells us of a changing world; one of hard yet simple farming idyll to the changing landscape of housing estates, supermarkets and mass farming.
He reminisces about times gone by and experiences had, his nostalgia endearing and entertaining.
A comforting homely read.
Through various characters in his life (mother, father, grandfather, great grandfather), Neil Sentance tells us of a changing world; one of hard yet simple farming idyll to the changing landscape of housing estates, supermarkets and mass farming.
He reminisces about times gone by and experiences had, his nostalgia endearing and entertaining.
A comforting homely read.
January 16, 2018
This little gem of a book was a Christmas present from my wife and is an absolute delight. Published by the inestimable Little Toller Press who have carved out a niche market in beautifully produced books about the countryside and rural life (bringing back into print many forgotten classics along the way), it is a sequence of luminous memories, reflections and imaginings about the author's family and childhood on the banks of the river Witham in Lincolnshire. The prose is simple, restrained but highly visual and paints a vivid picture of people and belonging in a landscape - firmly rooted but not immune to the forces of history and modernity. Highly recommended.
September 18, 2020
Superb set of essays on the interaction of the author and three generations of his family with the countryside and small towns of Lincolnshire. This is real history, and real countryside, not the rose tinted bullshit nostalgia so often encountered. I loved it, and hope that the author is hard at work on his next book!
September 12, 2014
A beautiful, moving collection of writings on the author's Lincolnshire childhood and the stories of generations past. This will be familiar to many of us who were children in rural and suburban England in the 1970s. It left me with a deep sense of loss and wonder
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews