Copsford

by Walter J.C. Murray, Anne-Marie Vervelde (Translator)

Copsford is het klassieke verhaal van Walter J.C. Murray, van het leven begin jaren twintig van een jonge man op het platteland van Sussex, ver weg van zijn stadsleven – een jaar waarin hij een vervallen huisje huurde zonder stromend water of elektriciteit. De meeste ramen waren kapot, het was vies, donker en vol met ratten. Hij kocht een kwast en een emmer in het dorp, dwong de ratten zich terug te trekken en richtte het in met slechts enkele meubelstukken. De plaatselijke postbode vond een hond voor hem, en met zijn nieuwe metgezel begon hij zijn omgeving te verkennen. Hij verdiende de kost met het verzamelen, drogen en verkopen van de kruiden die hij lokaal vond, zoals kleefkruid, agrimonie, ogentroost en duizendblad. Het is echter niet alleen het verhaal van een landelijke idylle – het leven in Copsford was moeilijk, en Murray schuwt de incidentele verschrikkingen niet.

Genres: Nonfiction, Nature, Memoir, Natural History, British Literature, Biography, Science Nature

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1948

Reviews

[Forrest · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a child, I roamed. I was born to roam, I suppose – an American born in Germany who lived in Germany, Texas, the Philippine Islands, Italy, and Minnesota all before the age of ten. Lived – not visited. I have a difficult time remember all the places we visited as a family during that time. Like most children of that day and age, before over-protectiveness stifled wanderlust, I wandered on my own a fair amount, too. After Minnesota, we moved to Nebraska and, when I was 15, we moved to England, where I wandered far and wide, rarely with family, sometimes with friends, often alone – me, on foot, bike, bus, or train, all across England. This summer, my wife and I are planning to travel back there (tickets are already bought) to spend a week in England, then a week in Central Europe (mostly Austria, where my wife lived for a year and a half in her early twenties). But we are avoiding, as much as possible, the glitz of London, the dance halls of Manchester, and spending the vast majority of our time in the area I learned to love by wandering its hills: The Cotswolds. I am planning on doing myself the favor of shutting off my smart phone, save to take photographs or get directions. I long to unconnect, then reconnect. I am fighting to regain my right to roam untethered, if only for a short time.

What do I mean by reconnecting? I struggle to know if it is the vanity of trying to connect with myself or some idealized connection with the world that I strive for, that I enjoyed so much in carefree hours as a child and that I only get today in snippets. It is manifest in a return to the sense of the smell of the fields, the feeling of sun on my skin, the sight of wind combing long grasses, the various voices of wind through the trees. While the sensations are brought from the far reaches of the world (or possibly even beyond, at least in my romantic imaginings), I am the receptacle of the sensations. So, whether the search is vanity or altruism – I cannot tell.

Copsford came at a fortuitous, unexpected time. I am a steady consumer of Tartarus Press books, but this one is significantly different for them – a naturalist work with no supernatural elements at all, a non-fictional work (if Murray is to be trusted, and I think he is). While it takes place in east Sussex, far away from the Cotswolds, I also recall hiking on the High Weald, very near where the book takes place, so I have an affinity for that area, as well. When I first read the notice that Tartarus was producing this work in hardcover, I jumped on it and ordered it as soon as I could, not arguing with the magical timing of the release vis-à-vis my trip back to a place I have not been in over thirty years.

The truth of the matter is that I was legally banished from the place that I had lived in England at the age of 18. It was the late ‘80s, the war on drugs was in full swing, and I lost a battle. Faced with the possibility of a long prison sentence, I count myself blessed that the judge only banished me from the Air Force Base on which the laws were transgressed. Now, the base has been decommissioned, and I will get to go back without fear of the law, to visit the place I once loved. Of all the places I’ve lived in the world, I miss England the most and most especially, the English countryside.

Keep in mind, also, that the last time I lived with my parents for any appreciable length was when we lived in England. With the passing of my Mother last February and my Father last April, is it a coincidence that life has favored me now with the opportunity to go back, just at the time this book was released? You decide.

Copsford recounts the stay of the author, Walter J.C. Murray, at a derelict cottage on a farm, far to the south of London, where he had resided before then. He only stayed there for a spring, summer, and a winter, but it was obviously a profound event for him. Were I not married, with obligations to children and a grandchild (and another, before we leave on our trip), I might be tempted to take the pauper’s course and do something similar, odd as it may sound. But Murray lived in a time in which he could harvest and sell herbs at a good enough rate to actually survive (with some of his savings, from his employment in London), whereas I would stand a good chance of starvation, should I try the same.

It was characteristic of the place that I heard it before I saw it. As I approached, the blustering wind brought to my ears the forlorn rattle of ill-fitting windows that had not been opened for twenty years. There was, too, the thump-thump of a door that swung heavily but never latched: And then I saw it. Grass grew up to the very door-step. The walls were bare, hideously bare; no ivy, rambler, not a plant or shrub nestled against them, just stark brick from grey slate roof to the ground. It would not have been Copsford had bowers of honeysuckle overhung the port or sweet clematis smiled about the sills. There were four windows and a door, not in the usual childish arrangement, but three on the upper floor, and one on the ground floor to the left of the front door. They were square-cornered and grim, and several broken panes gaped darkly at me. There was an ugly grey chimney-stack at the south end, the cottage face east, and on the north wall was a half-ruined brick-and-slate shed to which the door was gone. There had been a wood fence between what should have been the garden and the field, but only the uprights remained and one or two tumbled cross-bars, crumbling in their slots. The rough grass of the field swept in unhindered, lapped the walls of the cottage, washed round behind it. Like a flood-tide, it swamped everything; the cottage stood, a barren, inhospitable rock in the midst.

This introduction is symbolic of the push and pull between beauty and decay that Murray moved between. It was not all flowers and birdsongs (though there if plenty of these, as well). Writers interested in giving a realist bent to post-apocalyptic fiction should read this chapter about Murray's war against the rats. There is grist for the mill here. Now I see why giant rats were a thing in Dungeons and Dragons.

Much of the heartbeat of Murray’s experience had to do with his keen awareness of his surroundings: The weather ruled all, and I often thought of all those millions in London, and indeed in every town and city, to whom changes in the weather meant no more than carrying or not carrying a gamp to the station, office, or workshop; all those for whom work went on just as ever it had done, no matter whether skies were blue or grey, no matter whether the sparkling dew drenched the awakening countryside, no matter whether the wind set hard and dry in the east or wet and billowy from the west. And I wondered, wondered at the artificiality of their lives, cut off from natural loveliness, variety and life . . . Being a city-dweller now for some years (right on the wild edge of a major city), I do miss that connection, or at least a fullness of it, that one feels when one lives in the landscape. Some of this has to do with not having the time to wander like I did as a child, to feel the land in you.

For a time, in the late ‘90s and early 2000s, I worked at the largest canoe and kayak shop in the US (at that time, anyway). My house is a block from one of the main lakes in Madison (a city built “on” four interconnected lakes) and I was able to canoe to and from work each day, so long as the water wasn’t yet hard. During those commutes, I often felt locked in with nature, that my human body was once again a part of the Earth from which it arose (and to which it will return). One of the primary reasons for this was the connection I felt with the light of day and its energizing effect on me. Murray puts it this way:

. . . during those summer months at Copsford, when I was oppressed by no anxieties or worries, when no evil bore me down, when I lived to the full every carefree hour, when perhaps my eye was single, it was then that light had its strongest hold upon me. Do not we take light too much for granted? Is not light the only chain that links universe to universe at last?

Because Floss (Murray’s dog) and I rose early to greet the sun on those happy summer mornings, it must not be thought that I was one of those unbelievable persons who can always spring on waking, from their beds, fresh and energetic. In those Copsford days, it was natural; it would have been unthinkable, impossible, to lie in bed with the July sun rising high in the heavens . . .

One reason for my distance from nature must have to do with driving. When I lived in England, I did not drive, but bussed, rode my bike, and walked everywhere. I walked a lot. I still take great joy in walking when winter has abated. But time is limited now, and I cannot wander, as I did as a child, for hours on end. I am, sadly, more connected with pavement than with dirt, though I do take opportunity to hike when I can. Because of this, I have a great deal of jealousy for Murry and his summer on foot:

We walked on regardless of time and distance. That upland turf is a carpet which never seems to weary those who tread it. So short it is, so compact, so springy; and the view and the sea and the distance hypnotized us; and the roll of the hills, fold on fold, lured us on. There should be no end to such travellers’ joy.

I could not agree more. I am ready to wander and not be lost. Catch me if you can!

[Patrick.G.P · Rating 4 out of 5]

“I was of the country. I could not dip my pen in the life-blood of the city streets. I needed the very song of the shadow-dappled brook to write, with the sounds of wild wings in my ears and the scent of wild flowers in my nostrils.”

Copsford is the autobiographical narrative of Walter J.C. Murray who in 1920, moved away from London to live by himself in a small, derelict cottage in the English countryside. His goal was to get back to the environment of the country which he dearly loved and gather herbs to sell and sustain himself. The book outlines his joys, his struggles against the looming loneliness, his hopes and dreams and observations on the local wildlife and flora while living in the broken-down cottage for a year along with his faithful dog Floss.

The book has several wonderful moments in it, and a lot of lovely stories concerning chance encounters with the local farmers, wildlife and the elements themselves, but it is perhaps the smallest moments of the book that makes it so special, Murray’s complete wonderment at seeing two partridges emerging from the grass, the interplay of sunbeams through the boughs of a mighty tree, and his thoughts on the strange properties of the herbs he gathers. Occasions where nature’s beauty and mystery astounds him to the point that he almost has trouble conveying his thoughts and feelings.

Here is the novel’s biggest strength as it draws on the same naturalistic mysticism and anti-materialism that both Arthur Machen and Algernon Blackwood tried to convey in many of their stories. Murray’s narrative is filled with awe at the inner workings of nature, from flora to fauna, and he manages to capture his enthusiasm and his reverence for it in his prose. There is also something slightly sinister in the way Murray describes the loneliness and isolation in the book as if it’s a physical presence within Copsford he has to chase out. In the pages of Copsford, we glean the mystique and the indescribable beauty of nature seen through the eyes of a man who reveres it almost to the point of religion. Throughout the book, there are also several excellent photographs of wildlife, scenery, and herbs taken by Murray in the 1940s to illustrate the manuscript.

The book is a truly delightful read, and it’s hard not to get caught up in Murray’s wild enthusiasm, be it for the herbs he gathers or the wonderful sights that nature shows him around the cottage. Partly an autobiographical account of a man’s year in isolation in nature, and partly his remembrance of how he communed with the mysticism of the English countryside.

“In late April, when wind-flowers carpet the woodlands, and a haze of dainty green veils the bare limbs of hornbeam and beech, what sound so magical is there as the response of the trees to the young wind?”

Included in the Tartarus Press edition is the short, but quite wonderful chapter “Voices of Trees” from an earlier book by Murray, where tries to outline some strange, hidden language that can be heard when the wind blows through the boughs of trees and its meaning to wildlife and the elements. Also, in this edition is an excellent foreword by R.B. Russell which sheds some light on Murray’s life both during his stay at Copsford and after his year there had come to an end.

[Sylvester (Taking a break in 2023) · Rating 5 out of 5]

"But at Copsford there were seasons when time almost stood still, and I too learnt to be still. At first I was restless, miserable, a gnawing discontent tried to eat my heart out, and if I had not been blessed with an inborn love of the countryside it would have succeeded. But I slowly learned to stand and stare. The leaven was working. I not only stood and not only stared, but I began to see. I saw lovely things and rare things, quaint and curious things, colours, marvellous and surpassing the imagination of the proudest paintbox in the world, saw the play of light across the meadow and wood, saw a shaft of sunlight fill a spring-green copse until it glowed as though the glory of the Light of the World dwelled within. I caught an occasional glimpse of the intricate and complex pattern of life, and, once or twice, as fleeting as the rainbow-flash from a trembling dewdrop, I perceived that all these things were but the external signs of a kingdom such as I had never dreamed of; that these colours were as a drop-curtain which, while it might never rise to disclose the stage within, grew transparent before my wondering eyes."

This book arrived unasked for, like a blessing. Thank you, YKW. I had not heard of it before, I didn't know what it was about. It was a true surprise, and I wish everyone could have this experience - where something comes to you that so fills you with joy and a sense of the loveliness of life that it spills over.

The long and the short is this - Murray, a man depleted and battered by circumstance, in a kind of desperate plan of escape, rents an abandoned and unwelcoming house in the country. His idea is to work all summer, collecting herbs for the medicinal market, and to write during the winter.
Nothing is simple, of course, and the house is depressing in its decay, but Walter manages to make just enough of a bearable corner for himself in it to get by - and then he goes outside.

This is where the book really got its teeth into me. I did a very tiny bit of herb collecting like this at one time. Gathering purple clover and yarrow for drying for tea, harvesting the young stinging nettle shoots for soup, comfrey for salve. Raised in the boondocks with parents interested in herbs and native plants, it was my personal aim to know the name of every single wild green living thing around me. So reading of Walter's wanderings over hills and through meadows and woods searching for herbs was like a dream come to life. Not just because of the beauty of nature, but the time as well - 1948, in England. (These old memoirs! Treasure for time travelers!)

Copsford reminded me of the book "A Month In the Country" by J.L. Carr. Another wounded soul on the mend. His time in nature is all about the healing power of beauty. He did not want it to end, and neither did I.

"...Sometimes, when sitting comfortably and sipping my cup of tea, I become aware that it is not just an infusion of the leaves of the tea plant that quenches my thirst and pleases my palate, for I realise that tropical sun and monsoon rains, mountain slopes and ancient soil, toiling hands and patient care, are distilled in the fragrant steam that coils in rainbow vapours from my cup; and I am thankful for all that, and stimulated thereby. If such qualities do not attach to mundane things we might as well not live."

"At last came a morning in June, light, airy and still. I had awakened to find the early sun streaming in my open uncurtained window, golden and warm. I tossed away the bedclothes to stand entranced at the sight and sound and perfume of the perfect morning. It sometimes happens, at rare moments in our lives, we are suddenly aware of an altogether new world, different completely from that in which we commonly live. We feel as though we stand at the threshold of an undiscovered kingdom, for brief moments we understand life interpreted, we perceive meaning instead of things. In those golden minutes I understood every word on a single page of the magic book of Life inscribed in a language neither written nor spoken. There was a sublime tranquillity in the level of white mists of the valley, a symphony like the ascending melodies of Greig in the sun rays that climbed aslant the hill, a quiet strength in the stillness of the trees, a brotherhood of life in all living things. I was no longer a single life pushing a difficult way amidst material things, I was a part of all creation."

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

These days people imagine going off-grid, turning away from the technology, screens and the constant interruptions from the modern world. There are those that have done it are a special breed, such as Mark Boyle who tells his story in The Way Home. Most seem to be happy with their choice of limiting their interaction with the modern world.

And what a perfume there was to it! It was like the scent of fresh tea with something else added, something essentially English, the sweetness and fragrance of the woodlands of this England.

Go back 100 years and it was all off-grid! But even then you could find places that were isolated from normal life if you knew where to look. Back in the 1920s Walter Murray had been living in London and working as a journalist, but he had become tired of city life and decided to move back to the country. He moved to Horam in Sussex into an almost derelict house near a farm. He wanted to make a living writing and collecting wild herbs.

One of those days which are like jewels among the many-coloured beads of spring. A day when we seem to breathe not air, but sunshine, when the sky is high and deeply blue, the horizon faintly far, when the woods ring with the bird music and the new green is still so light that there seems to be more branch than leaf.

This is the book that he wrote about his stay there over the course of a year. It is partly a matter of fact journal of his day to day activities, the battle with purging the place of rats and making the place semi habitable. He wasn’t alone but had the company of a collie mixed breed dog called Floss but it was still a hard year collecting and carrying all the herbs back to Copsford for drying. Each chapter concentrates on a herb that is in season and the work he does in collecting them, it is back-breaking work for a paltry reward.

It is mundane work, but what he relishes is being outdoors. He goes from being restless and agitated to being calmed by the natural world. Staring at the hedgerows and slowly he beings to really see what is around him, the dance of light beneath the canopy of a tree, taking in the scents of the meadows and watching the birds go about their business without noticing him. This sort of work is lonely too, he manages mostly, but his spirit is lifted when a close friend from childhood visits.

I did think rather him than me a few times. The thought of spending a year in a dwelling that leaks and is borderline derelict (it’s the house on the cover), doesn’t hold a lot of appeal, really. That said, being able to take a step away from modern life and do something different every now and again does have some appeal. Murray writes about the things that he sees as he walks from the house to where he is collecting the herbs from and slowly over the summer he goes from being merely an observer to someone who becomes in tune with all the living things around him. This is one of those deceptive books, you think there is not going to be much apart from the tedium of work and yet there is much more to this and that is solely down to the quality of his writing.

[Christine Bonheure · Rating 1 out of 5]

Jammer van de tijd die ik in dit boek heb gestoken. Het uitgangspunt leek me nochtans leuk: een Londense journalist verhuist naar een bouwvallig huis op het platteland, ver verwijderd van alles, om kruiden te zoeken, te drogen en te verhandelen. In het begin vind ik zijn strijd tegen de ratten, met behulp van de hond, wel leuk. Maar dan wijdt hij tot in het kleinste detail uit over zijn zoektochten naar kruiden zoals – hou je vast – kleefkruid, vingerhoedskruid, duizendguldenkruid, agrimonie, moerasspirea en boerenwormkruid. Nu moet je weten dat ik een echte natuurliefhebber ben, maar biologie heb ik altijd een oninteressant snertvak gevonden. Ik heb het boek uitgelezen omdat ik dacht dat er nog iets spannends zou gebeuren, maar driewerf helaas. Op het eind is er weliswaar een glimp van iets beloftevols, maar net dan sluit de auteur het boek abrupt af. Zonde.

[Carl Despriet · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have enjoyed this book a lot. A bit like 'into the wild', on a smaller scale but the love for nature, for the herbs, the animals, the birds, the insects... make it a wonderful experience. I can fully understand that Raynor Winn was charmed by this story. 'Back to nature', an ode to the union between man and unspoilt nature, it's back to basics with no electricity or running water. With a dog as his sole companion. The restoration of the link between man and his environment. I thought it was a great adventure, a revealing experience. Loved it.

[Gert De Bie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Walden light vind ik wel goed klinken, als jullie beloven het niet pejoratief op te vatten.

Heerlijk vonden we het om het jaar dat Walter J.C. Murray begin jaren '20 doorbracht op een vervallen hoeve in Sussex mee te mogen beleven. Copsford was 20 jaar onbewoond en verstoken van stromend water en elektriciteit, maar exact de plek die Murray zocht als schril contrast voor zijn bestaan op een 3-hoog flat in Londen.
Op een heuvel, over het water van de Darn, tussen de verwilderde weides, 1,5 mijl van de dichtstbijzijnde boerderij nam hij met slechts een stoel en een bed als meubilair zijn intrek in Copsford om te leven van de kruidenpluk en in zijn vrije momenten te schrijven.

Het is heerlijk om 100 jaar na datum de ervaringen van Murray te lezen: hij vindt helemaal zijn weg in de natuur - ook al is hij leek - en geraakt daar zo aan verslingerd dat hij zich met weinig anders bezig houdt. Hoewel de eenzaamheid weegt, zijn de uren die hij buiten - aan het werk - doorbrengt, uren vol vreugde, labeur en genot.
De overpeinzingen van Murray zijn waardevol en dankbaar voor de lezer, geen zware bedenksel of uitgesproken levensfilosofie, maar eerder rake opmerkingen, herkenbare ontdekkingen en veel menselijkheid. Treffend hoe iemand 100 jaar geleden ook al het gejaagde stadsleven wilde ontvluchten.

Met smaak verorberd. Veel smaak. Waarom geen 5 sterren? Ik weet het niet, omdat we daar wat omzichtiger mee moeten omspringen? Kom, een schone 4,5 dan!

[Jim Puskas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Books of this nature rarely come to hand, primarily because there's precious little market for such material. So the lineup of writers prepared to produce it is short and the list of publishers willing to put it into print even shorter. It's a heartfelt paean to the natural world and man's place in it (if he ever takes the time and trouble to find it).
One of the most unique and engaging qualities of Murray's writing is his passionate and penetrating study of the power of light, smell and wind to trigger an emotional reaction through man's senses. His account of the wind swirling and gusting across a meadow and hillside, sculpting and driving patterns through the tall grasses, evoking a stampeding flock of sheep, was especially memorable.
One might be inclined to place this book in a class with Thoreau's Walden; that would do an injustice to both books. Murray never aspired to Thoreau's philosophic depth and he mercifully avoided that man's pomposity (I suppose that constitutes heresy on my part; so be it). The best comparison I can think of would be with Beth Powning's Home: Chronicle of a North Country Life, one of the most beautiful and rewarding books I own.
But as I said before, there's scant market for this wonderful stuff. Too bad!

[Paul Saarma · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent memoir of a year shortly after world war one spent in a rural rundown cottage. The author's description of nature and its wonders is enchanting and battles with loneliness poignant, brightened by his faithful hound Floss and encounters with his beloved music mistress.
A fascinating glimpse into a lost epoch but with messages that still resonate today.

[Alison · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learnt of this book while reading Raynor Winn’s “The Wild Silence” and it left me very curious, so I purchased a copy and I liked it very much. What bothered me though was the constant typing errors throughout the book.

does instead of close, dear instead of clear, chat instead of that, mall instead of small, and once the same sentence was written twice.

Had someone checked the book through before publishing, it would have made it perfect.

[Gilly · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lyrical psalm to the natural world and the delights of the English countryside, Murray's memoir about the challenging yet idyllic months he spent in a derelict cottage, eking out a living by collecting and selling herbs, is beautifully written, funny and poignant. The book is a delight for the senses, and nature lovers, herbalists, environmentalists, and anyone yearning for a simple country life should enjoy it.

[Simon Pressinger · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5* A memoir full of the spirit and rapture of nature. Murray was fed up of London life, working as a hack and getting no joy out of deadline journalism. He found a very remote, derelict husk of a house called Copsford in Southern England and decided to live there, living hand to mouth, gathering and selling plants for their medicinal properties. I loved the almost gothic descriptions of the house, its murky, dingy, musky insides. It was like Fall of the House of Usher. It was also nice that he’d found a friend (in addition to his dog) to help him forage for and gather all these abundant wild plants. Loneliness and depression are big themes in this book, though the word ‘depression’ as we use it wasn’t the word Murray uses; ‘oppression of spirits’ or ‘terrible weight’, something like that, is how he describes those dark emotions he feels being all alone in a sad, quiet, rat-infested house.

I didn’t really like much of the flowery language, which sounds today a bit sentimental and overcharmed (is that a word?) to feel credible. But I do love his boyish joy at seeing the simplest things — the way a shaft of late summer sunlight falls in a dense green glade — and takes delight in it. He expresses the importance of those connections with transient moments, with natural settings, scenery and wildlife that require us to slow right down and just stare.

I’d recommend this book to anyone with a deep desire to live alone and/or go self-sufficient for a while.

[Linda Phillips · Rating 4 out of 5]

An unusual read from a century ago as a man, fed up of London, goes the opposite extreme and lives in a derelict cottage by the downs for a year living a solitary life. Full of introspection, insights and a sharp eye learning of the countryside around him. A good read, one I only ca,e across after reading the books by Raynor Winn

[Gary Budden · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some really gorgeous prose and moments of ethereal beauty, nestled amongst a fairly dull account of herb collecting and a standard ‘leave the city and go back to nature narrative’. Not quite the lost classic I’d hoped for.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Copsford is the tale of ten months spent living in an isolated, tumbledown farm cottage in the Sussex countryside. Fed up with city life, Murray returned to Sussex to collect herbs and write to generate some income. But this is more than a tale of struggle and survival, for Murray takes the reader on a spiritual journey that reveals the very essence of a natural world that most of us don't ever comprehend. The few characters mentioned in the book, other than the music mistress, are mostly incidental, but each forms a pillar at vital moments in this tale. Murray battles rats, and rampaging cattle, and ploughs his own furrow. But it is his many observations that inform. The workings of light and colour in an ever changing environment, the gentle rush of wind at play among grasses and along hedgerows. He learns to listen anew. To develop his sense smell. Forms of insect noise, bird chatter reveal themselves as symphonic arrangements. The fragrance of earth's bounty directs his wanderings. Murray respects the unwavering spirit of the landscape and it's mighty determination to keep going. This is not escapism but recognizing the beauty that is born and sustains our lifeform. Murray would most likely put this down to creation but that doesn't impinge on his wonderful offering.

[David Tutt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having watched The Good Life many years ago I have often wondered what it would be like to try to live in a self sufficient way. Back in the 1920s Walter Murray did exactly that. Living in a shell of a house in rural Sussex away from any roads he spent almost a year foraging for herbs which he dried and eventually sold.

With broken windows, no running water, gas or electricity, his days were spent with his dog in the countryside. His human contact seems to have been mainly confined to the farmer he rented the property from, his wife from whom he purchased milk and eggs, the postman and the piano teacher who lived in a nearby village and to whom he dedicated the book.

[Koger · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was delightful. It occupies a space somewhere between J.A. Baker's "The Peregrine" and Walden but with a very heavy dose of British gentility. A man occupies a derelict cottage in the British countryside and is changed during his year in residency. I read the Tartarus Press edition which further cemented them as one of my favorite presses in the industry

[Χρυσόστομος Τσαπραΐλης · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing narration of the author's almost year-long experience living in an isolated and half-ruined cottage. A book for all who crave to live far from society, out into the wild.

[Colin · Rating 4 out of 5]

The publisher Little Toller excels at bringing long out of print books about nature and rural life back to life. Copsford, first published in 1948, is the personal account of a young man, who, tiring of life in London, decides to return to his native Sussex and try to scratch a living by foraging and selling wild herbs. He rents a semi-derelict cottage (the Copsford of the title) and spends the best part of a year there. The cottage provides scant protection from the elements and has to be cleared of a resident population of rats, but, with the companionship of a dog, it is just about adequate. The move back to country living works wonders, despite the deprivations, and Walter Murray's descriptions of the effect of his herb gathering expeditions on clearing his head and heightening his senses are restorative to the reader even at this remove.

[Richard Swan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A memoir of a man who, in 1920, spends a year living alone in a derelict cottage in Sussex, away from the rat race of London. He lives by gathering and drying herbs to sell. The book is a nostalgic reflection on being isolated (he compares himself to Robinson Crusoe) and becoming attuned to the natural world. Reflective without being sentimental, it’s quietly evocative, and frequently poetic in its descriptions.

‘I travelled by spinney and copse, through shaw and forgotten corduroy, at first because there I expected to find my herbs, but later because I became secretive and shy. Living so close to the wild, almost instinctively I copied creatures of the wild. I travelled swiftly, silently and unseen. I learned woodland behaviour, I heard woodland sounds.’

[5greenway · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really loved this. Painstaking account of a mad project undertaken by an endearing nutter. Covers a lot of ground in breezy and a kind of carelessly profound style, from bitterly-waged wars against the prior residents of Copsford to summer idylls in the fields, woods and waters.

[Tom Stanger · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! What a fantastic experience!

[Annelies leest · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ik leerde het verhaal van Copsford kennen door Het Zoutpad van Raynor Winn te lezen, daarin verwijst ze naar Copsford, een verhaal dat voor haar en haar man een nieuw begin betekent. Natuurlijk maakte dat mij heel erg nieuwsgierig naar Copsford!
Walter vertelde ons zijn verhaal oorspronkelijk al in 1948, hierna zijn er telkens heruitgaven geweest.
Wanneer Walter J.C.Murray als toenmalige schrijver in een writer block terecht komt, besluit hij in een vlaag van verstandsverbijstering het eenzame en vervallen huis Copsford te huren. Samen met Floss, een gevonden hond, doet hij gedurende zijn tijd in Copsford allerlei ervaringen op en heeft hij bovenal veel tijd om na te denken.
Wat onmiddellijk opvalt zijn de illustraties in het boek, foto's van de omgeving rond Copsford en foto's van Copsford zelf. Deze geven een mooie meerwaarde aan het verhaal.
Mijn verwachtingen lagen misschien wat te hoog wat Copsford betreft. Ik had uitgekeken naar een soortgelijk verhaal als Het Zoutpad, maar dat is het dus allerminst. Walter verteld enorm veel over soorten kruiden, insecten, vogels...en gaat hier ook bijna altijd heel diep op in, waardoor het gevoel voor avontuur verloren gaat en het vaak uitmondt in een aantal langdradige pagina's.
Wanneer hij zich dan wel uitweid over zijn ervaringen en over avontuurlijke gebeurtenissen op Copsford, heeft hij mij aan zijn pagina's gekluisterd. Jammer genoeg zijn er hier lang niet genoeg momenten van.
Wat wel heel erg opvalt aan het verhaal, Walter J.C.Murray schreef het neer met hart en ziel. De passie voor de natuur voel je door de woorden die hij je verteld en dat is dan ook het belangrijkste dat mij bijblijft uit Copsford.

Vindt mij ook op Facebook en Instagram @annelies_leest.

[Delphine · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the early 1920s, journalist Walter Murray moved to Sussex, to the derelict cottage of Copsford, a mean little cottage, untenanted for twenty years, rat-ridden, rain-sodden.

Copsford, located at the summit of a hill, surrounded by brooks and the river Darn, has an inhospitable nature; Murray is seized by paralysis upon entering the cottage. He declares war on the army of rats - and wins it, along with his ratter Floss.

Murray dedicates himself to his new job: the harvesting of wild herbs of the English countryside. He reports in (too) great detail about the properties of clivers, foxglove, centaury, agrimony and meadowsweet. In that process, he discovers his spiritual connection to nature. He knows himself liberated when he swims in the old farmyard pond, when he perceives how his concept of time is replaced by a sensitivity to light. He learns how to wonder, too: about the miracle of migration of the swift, about the extinction of life forms, about cloud-play and the smells of the countryside.

It can't last, obviously. After one glorious winter (and some poor balance sheets), Copsford finally wins, as Murray is unable to come to terms with his crippling loneliness inside the house.

Copsford is a very peculiar time document, recorded in the 1940s, after the demise of Murray's son at age 15. It's intriguing as a record of a dwindled past, but often goes into great (botanical) detail, which weakened my interest.

[Mike Sumner · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quite remarkable book, first published in 1948 and this paperback edition published in 2019 by Little Teller Books. It is an account of a year spent by Walter J.C. Murray in Sussex where he was born in 1900 in the village of Horam. After the Great War he spent some time in London as a journalist and became disenchanted with his life there in postwar England. He longed for 'solitude among woods and hills' where he could 'live close to nature'. His escape to a rural idyll led him to Copsford (in the early 20s), a ruined house a mile from the nearest habitation 'where the wind rushed up the stairs and water poured through the roof'. He convinced the local farmer who owned the property to rent it to him for 3/- (three shillings) a week. Murray intended to pick herbs to sell for medicinal purposes.

This is that story, a eulogy to the Sussex countryside, a story of toil and hardship, the story of Floss, the dog given to him by a villager to help kill the infestation of rats at Copsford and who became his loyal companion.

Copsford was written in the 1940s, two decades after the last bunch of herbs was sent to the market, but his recollections of this time are as clear as if they had been written only a year or two after. It is a book for anyone who loves the countryside and rural life and stands the test of time.

[Wendie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Walter Murray is een gedegen schrijver, die de kwaliteiten van verschillende kruiden en het verzamelen ervan goed weet te beschrijven. Het is ook een romantische ziel zoals duidelijk wordt uit zijn beschrijving van het huis Copsford als een soort levend organisme, dat hem veel geeft maar uiteindelijk ook weer wegjaagt in de winter wanneer er waterstromen door het huis gaan. Hier en daar is het echt saai, maar er zitten heel leuke stukjes tussen, zoals bijvoorbeeld wanneer hij op de ratten jaagt, samen met de hond. Walter blijft in een verhaal een eendimensionaal persoon, waardoor je je niet zo goed met hem kunt identificeren. Een fantastisch verhaal voor natuurliefhebbers, dat zeker.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Is there not, in fact, magic enough in a single leaf for our minds to conjure with? Did not a child learn from them something of the soul of a tree, of its sturdy strength, it's steadfastness and courage, it's open arms and friendly welcome, it's voice awakened with every wind? A tree is an individual life, and wherever there is life we may apprehend ideas, the ideas of the Creator"

An account of a man in the early 1920's after WW1 and his quest for spending time in the countryside living a simple, yet productive life and battling the elements in a ramshackle abode!

[Janneke]

'There is a fascination about the faraway island across the glittering southern seas, about the mountaintop shrouded in heavy mists, about the quiet clearing in the heart of the forest, that few can resist.'

Should not be read for the great writing, but certainly for the unbelievable task that Murray took upon himself. I enjoyed it very much, and also had a good laugh every now and then. Also enjoyed the original photographs that are included in this edition (and the typewritten 'the enemy', heading a photograph of a rat).

[Mark Maliepaard · Rating 3 out of 5]

A gentle and mildly humourous tale of a man wrestling with the elements in a forlorn house while scavenging herbs, this was was a nice slow-read, but nothing went very deep. So it's not a guide to herbology, or a 'how to renovate a derelict mansion', and not even a 'how to turn my dull London-bound life around', but more of 'a year in the life of...'. Nice, but not really elevating. It has made me curious about the house and its surroundings, though.

[Alex Boon · Rating 4 out of 5]

A journal of a man's year living simply in a derelict cottage during the 1920s. In places, the writing is utterly breathtaking, in other places a little more mundane. That said, the book never dragged one moment for me. I was sad to finish it. I made many notes; one to return to time and again.