What do you think?
Rate this book
One Fine Day: A Journey Through English Time
From one of the great chroniclers of our times and our land - the author of Parallel Lines, A Hero for High Times and The Longest Crawl - comes a career-defining book. This is the story of Ian Marchant's great (x7) grandfather, Thomas Marchant, who left a detailed diary from 1714 to 1728. Life-loving Thomas - who liked a drink and game of cards - feels recognisably Marchant to Ian. Thomas wrote about his family farm and fishponds; about dung, horses and mud; and about the making and drinking of cider. But, as Ian discovers, he was also a Fifteener, a Jacobite sympathiser determined to bring down the monarchy. Ian Marchant tells the story of uncovering a new relative and digs deep into the daily life and political concerns of the 1720s. By exploring the Marchant family's journey - and how their England (rainy, muddy, politically turbulent and illness ridden) became the England of 2021 - Marchant discovers just how much we have to learn from our ancestors. By turns funny, lyrical, moving and illuminating, this is a conversation with the dead to find what is still alive. A conversation between a world that stood on the brink of industrialisation and a world that is now exhausted by it.
320 pages, Hardcover
Published April 6, 2023
About the author
Ian Marchant
21 books19 followersIan Marchant wasn't born in Newhaven in East Sussex in 1958, but he often claims that he was because of his deep embarrasment about his real place of birth.
But he really did grow up in Newhaven, and went to school there, and he still sees it as home, even though it quite clearly isn't, given that he lives 250 miles away in Mid-Wales. He didn't graduate in Philosophy from St David's University College, Lampeter in 1979. Or ever. He is currently a Masters student studying church history at Lampeter, though, honest.
He didn't make a living singing in bands in the late 1970's and early 1980's; nor did he become a civil engineer in the late 1980's, as he didn't have any facility for the maths. He was surprised to learn recently that he didn't graduate in the History and Philosophy of Science with a Creative Writing Minor from Lancaster University in 1992. He really did live in a caravan for many years, but he didn't share it with a chicken called Ginger, who was rather an occasional visitor.
He put his 'career' as a 'novelist' on 'hold' when his second novel 'The Battle For Dole Acre', (whose title he can't pronounce),didn't really sell. He decided to write non-fiction instead, because reality is so much less plausible than made up things. Like, there was the time with a pair of twins on duty at a Travelodge in Ely, which no one believes, but which really happened.
He didn't know much about railways or pubs when he started writing his acclaimed travel memoirs 'Parallel Lines: Or, Journeys on the Railway of Dreams' and 'The Longest Crawl: Being an Account of a Journey Through an Intoxicated Landscape or a Child's Treasury of Booze', (though he does now). He did stay awake for months to write his last book 'Something of the Night.
His latest book, 'A Hero for High Times: A Younger Reader’s Guide to the Beats, Hippies, Freaks, Punks, Ravers, New-Age Travellers and Dog-on-a-Rope Brew Crew Crusties of the British Isles, 1956–1994', has not yet been optioned for a fillum, so get in quick, I would.
He no longer sings in a cheesy cabaret duo called 'Your Dad', because the other half of 'Your Dad' died.
He does still support Brighton and Hove Albion, make radio shows when he's invited, and enjoy a cooked breakfast in Elda's Colombian Coffee House, High Street, Presteigne, Radnorshire.
You can read his blog, which he doesn't update enough, via his website, www.ianmarchant.com
But he really did grow up in Newhaven, and went to school there, and he still sees it as home, even though it quite clearly isn't, given that he lives 250 miles away in Mid-Wales. He didn't graduate in Philosophy from St David's University College, Lampeter in 1979. Or ever. He is currently a Masters student studying church history at Lampeter, though, honest.
He didn't make a living singing in bands in the late 1970's and early 1980's; nor did he become a civil engineer in the late 1980's, as he didn't have any facility for the maths. He was surprised to learn recently that he didn't graduate in the History and Philosophy of Science with a Creative Writing Minor from Lancaster University in 1992. He really did live in a caravan for many years, but he didn't share it with a chicken called Ginger, who was rather an occasional visitor.
He put his 'career' as a 'novelist' on 'hold' when his second novel 'The Battle For Dole Acre', (whose title he can't pronounce),didn't really sell. He decided to write non-fiction instead, because reality is so much less plausible than made up things. Like, there was the time with a pair of twins on duty at a Travelodge in Ely, which no one believes, but which really happened.
He didn't know much about railways or pubs when he started writing his acclaimed travel memoirs 'Parallel Lines: Or, Journeys on the Railway of Dreams' and 'The Longest Crawl: Being an Account of a Journey Through an Intoxicated Landscape or a Child's Treasury of Booze', (though he does now). He did stay awake for months to write his last book 'Something of the Night.
His latest book, 'A Hero for High Times: A Younger Reader’s Guide to the Beats, Hippies, Freaks, Punks, Ravers, New-Age Travellers and Dog-on-a-Rope Brew Crew Crusties of the British Isles, 1956–1994', has not yet been optioned for a fillum, so get in quick, I would.
He no longer sings in a cheesy cabaret duo called 'Your Dad', because the other half of 'Your Dad' died.
He does still support Brighton and Hove Albion, make radio shows when he's invited, and enjoy a cooked breakfast in Elda's Colombian Coffee House, High Street, Presteigne, Radnorshire.
You can read his blog, which he doesn't update enough, via his website, www.ianmarchant.com
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
March 11, 2024
This is the second book I have read by Ian Marchant and both are among my favourites of all time. Marchant was researching his family tree and discovered one of his ancestors in the eighteenth century kept a diary. Thom Marchant 1676-1728 was Ian’s 7x great grandfather and kept a detailed diary from 1714 to 1728. That was unusual in those times. Thom was a gentleman farmer, so there is a great deal about day to day farming life: the simple daily tasks, the costs of day to day tasks and articles. There is stuff about family, children and farm staff. There is also plenty about recreation (a great deal of drinking), including one of the earliest descriptions of a game of cricket.
Marchant traces his family back into the fifteenth century when he discovers they were immigrants from Belgium. They settled in Sussex from Belgium and brought a new iron smelting technique to the country. Marchant tells the story of his ancestors, but he also weaves it in with his own story. The book was researched just before lockdown in 2020. Just as lockdown started Marchant was diagnosed with prostate cancer of the terminal variety:
“not the good kind that you die with, but the bad kind that you probably die of”
He is still alive and still receiving treatment, but this forms a backdrop to the book. Marchant is insatiably curious and follows all sorts of leads and concepts, it pretty much turns into a social history and commentary, then and now. There are detours about the measurement of time, the uses of dung (very good for feeding fish apparently), underwear (disposable, made of vegetable material; really, don’t ask), the development of the smallpox vaccine, iron production, turnips, Brexit and immigration, wigs (the best were made of human hair, all had nits), wig snatching (yes, it was a thing), the nature of eighteenth century alcohol, fishponds, travel and its problems and much more. This is really about England and Marchant’s perception of it then and now:
“… a boutique festival sort of place, an artisanal gin Michelin-starred pub, Airbnb Country Living place, a defanged, disenchanted landscape”.
Marchant also comments on political things. Ancestor Thom was a Jacobite, so that provides another aside. This means Thom was Tory and Marchant makes a trenchant comment about the current Conservative party:
“…there is precious little resemblance between the Conservative Party of Baldwin, MacMillan and Heath that my grandpop supported and the current gang of Ayn Rand fanboy libertarian accelerationists who have seized power both in this country and over the zombie corpse of their party.”
This is full of interesting stuff and Marchant is an interesting chap: writer, musician, ex-punk, diarist and a bit of a sage.
Marchant traces his family back into the fifteenth century when he discovers they were immigrants from Belgium. They settled in Sussex from Belgium and brought a new iron smelting technique to the country. Marchant tells the story of his ancestors, but he also weaves it in with his own story. The book was researched just before lockdown in 2020. Just as lockdown started Marchant was diagnosed with prostate cancer of the terminal variety:
“not the good kind that you die with, but the bad kind that you probably die of”
He is still alive and still receiving treatment, but this forms a backdrop to the book. Marchant is insatiably curious and follows all sorts of leads and concepts, it pretty much turns into a social history and commentary, then and now. There are detours about the measurement of time, the uses of dung (very good for feeding fish apparently), underwear (disposable, made of vegetable material; really, don’t ask), the development of the smallpox vaccine, iron production, turnips, Brexit and immigration, wigs (the best were made of human hair, all had nits), wig snatching (yes, it was a thing), the nature of eighteenth century alcohol, fishponds, travel and its problems and much more. This is really about England and Marchant’s perception of it then and now:
“… a boutique festival sort of place, an artisanal gin Michelin-starred pub, Airbnb Country Living place, a defanged, disenchanted landscape”.
Marchant also comments on political things. Ancestor Thom was a Jacobite, so that provides another aside. This means Thom was Tory and Marchant makes a trenchant comment about the current Conservative party:
“…there is precious little resemblance between the Conservative Party of Baldwin, MacMillan and Heath that my grandpop supported and the current gang of Ayn Rand fanboy libertarian accelerationists who have seized power both in this country and over the zombie corpse of their party.”
This is full of interesting stuff and Marchant is an interesting chap: writer, musician, ex-punk, diarist and a bit of a sage.
April 11, 2023
I read this very engaging book in two days over the Easter Bank Holiday weekend. It’s a fabulous mix of social and personal history/memoir - witty, discursive, deeply moving, insightful, honest and at times angry. The publisher’s blurb does a better job than I can of explaining what it’s about, but I want to flag it up to anyone with connections to the Chichester/Brighton/Lewes area, and anyone who is interested in life in rural England in the 17th-19th centuries. There’s a road trip element too, and a few political rants. It’s also a very graphic account of what it’s like to suffer from and be treated for cancer. And it’s a snapshot of life in the author’s home town of Presteigne in the pandemic years. Ian is a great storyteller; his book deserves to be read.
January 7, 2025
The author's discovery that his great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather, a landed farmer in Sussex, kept a diary for ten years in the early 18th century is the genesis of this original book in which excurses on fish farming, iron-making, wigs and Jacobites jostle with ruminations on Covid, Brexit and the lamentable state of present-day absolutely everything. Double-underscoring it all is Marchant's terminal cancer diagnosis just as the pandemic, and this project, were getting underway. So his investigations of his ancestor are a way of connecting - with himself, present with past - in a profoundly dissociative time. Fans of historical trivia, and lovers of lineage who, like the author, feel an "absurd thrill" to stand in the place where their 14-greats grandfather once stood, will lap this up, but if like me you think there are few things so tedious as other people's genealogy, it'll be more of a mixed bag. It doesn't help that the source diaries are strictly business, focusing on livestock transactions and who ploughed what field, and laconic almost to the point of absurdity - old Thom Marchcant didn't leave his distant descendant much to go on. But said descendant's blokeish charm, honesty, and faith in humanity leaven what might otherwise feel like a somewhat valetudinarian lockdown endeavour.
April 22, 2023
Its at once a memoir, biography, social history, particularly of 18th century country life and travel log. An enjoyable read witty, bittersweet and heart warming as well.
At times it was not always clear what was fact from fantasy but despite this I learnt a lot and filled a few gaps on my family tree.
I like Ian can claim descent from the Hurstpierpoint Marchants. For many years it has been rumoured in the family that the Marchants were of French origin. While all the circumstantial evidence seems to point to this its still not been proven beyond doubt......
Word of warning: if you're an ardent Brexiteer or a staunch Conservative you might spit a few feathers during the course of your reading...
At times it was not always clear what was fact from fantasy but despite this I learnt a lot and filled a few gaps on my family tree.
I like Ian can claim descent from the Hurstpierpoint Marchants. For many years it has been rumoured in the family that the Marchants were of French origin. While all the circumstantial evidence seems to point to this its still not been proven beyond doubt......
Word of warning: if you're an ardent Brexiteer or a staunch Conservative you might spit a few feathers during the course of your reading...
August 31, 2025
The final chapter earned it that last star.
I’ve learned so much about my home county: one of *thee* Home Counties which, quite honestly, I was a little bit embarrassed about before. Sussex may not boast a holiday destination-worthy coastline, our hills may be small and polite compared to the mountains of the North, and we may have succumbed to, frankly, quite boring RP accents… but there is a rich history of community and innovation and neighbourliness here. And, like the author, I too would quite like to live in a world where kindness was rated as highly as it was in eighteenth century Sussex.
I’ve learned so much about my home county: one of *thee* Home Counties which, quite honestly, I was a little bit embarrassed about before. Sussex may not boast a holiday destination-worthy coastline, our hills may be small and polite compared to the mountains of the North, and we may have succumbed to, frankly, quite boring RP accents… but there is a rich history of community and innovation and neighbourliness here. And, like the author, I too would quite like to live in a world where kindness was rated as highly as it was in eighteenth century Sussex.
April 21, 2026
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I bought it on a one fine day in one of our travels through this beautiful country England. I wanted to know more about my adopted home, and this book delivered loads. Leaving aside coincidences tying me to this book (noting Cicester and Couvin, Liege etc) the books chapters are organised around the topics of the author’s ancestor’s diary and he is written the book during Covid and when he received a cancer diagnosis. A lot of emotions and inspiration packaged into history lessons! A rare find!
May 8, 2024
The authors writing style was engaging, which was just as well, as I found the beginning hard to follow.
I enjoyed this book immensely. It was fascinating, and even the politics came alive. The diary was really interesting in that with a few written words, another book was written. I would really score 4.5 because of the beginning.
I enjoyed this book immensely. It was fascinating, and even the politics came alive. The diary was really interesting in that with a few written words, another book was written. I would really score 4.5 because of the beginning.
Read
August 8, 2024Ian Marchant is a polymath, or at least he seems able to write fluently and engagingly about matters historical, scientific and cultural, while having novel takes on them. Not only that, he is multitalented: teaching, writing and performing songs, creating and presenting programmes (Fun for Some being particularly diverting). The book is written round his discovery, during Covid restrictions and his own need to isolate, that his seven-times- great great-grandfather was a renowned 1700s diarist, living near Hurstpierpoint in Sussex, not far from Ian's own place of very different upbringing in Newhaven. He draws out affinities and contrasts in time, mores, class, as part of asserting his own place in the world - he does come over as very much larger than life. Sometimes the history and detail felt a bit obsessive, but he's able to look at grand sweeps of change in agriculture and industry, peppered with small details about old Thom's turd-fed fish ponds and drinking habits, reflections on his own life and salty diatribes on current concerns such as sewage in rivers. I really enjoyed the book, partly because I know many of the places and local issues that he describes and partly because it revived and extended my own rusty memories of school history. He would be a brilliant history teacher. Amid the banter, there's many a serious thought-provoking point. Oh and the woodcut illustrations are a lovely addition, even though the multitalented author left that job to Julian Dicken.
May 18, 2024
The good:
- A very good sense of humor inhabits this book. I think my favorite sentence was “There are lots of museums dedicated to the history of the production of iron, as no one knows better than my wife and children."
- It’s moving to read a man’s account of (seemingly) graceful acceptance of his terminal illness. He retained his sense of humor!
- It’s flat-out interesting to read about the daily life of a man in 1715, and fun when Marchant juxtaposes the ancient journal entries with his own modern ones.
The bad:
- Ok, the book didn’t really deliver what I expected, which was an immersive look at 1720s Britain. Turns out the journal entries are nearly all dry as dirt! I was hoping for a bit more fictionalization to liven up the days, but we only get a page or two of this.
- Marchant is way too much of a “world is going to hell in a handbasket” dude for my liking. Yes you’re dying, but it doesn’t mean the world is doomed too.
- Ditto he is too much of a Luddite. I suspect life really really sucked for most people in 1715, and nearly everyone (esp. women) would frantically leap at the chance to live in our supposedly ruined modern age. Full disclosure: I do think global warming is real, but I also think human ingenuity (yes, technology) is going to get us off the hook.
- A very good sense of humor inhabits this book. I think my favorite sentence was “There are lots of museums dedicated to the history of the production of iron, as no one knows better than my wife and children."
- It’s moving to read a man’s account of (seemingly) graceful acceptance of his terminal illness. He retained his sense of humor!
- It’s flat-out interesting to read about the daily life of a man in 1715, and fun when Marchant juxtaposes the ancient journal entries with his own modern ones.
The bad:
- Ok, the book didn’t really deliver what I expected, which was an immersive look at 1720s Britain. Turns out the journal entries are nearly all dry as dirt! I was hoping for a bit more fictionalization to liven up the days, but we only get a page or two of this.
- Marchant is way too much of a “world is going to hell in a handbasket” dude for my liking. Yes you’re dying, but it doesn’t mean the world is doomed too.
- Ditto he is too much of a Luddite. I suspect life really really sucked for most people in 1715, and nearly everyone (esp. women) would frantically leap at the chance to live in our supposedly ruined modern age. Full disclosure: I do think global warming is real, but I also think human ingenuity (yes, technology) is going to get us off the hook.
September 5, 2025
I love what I've read by Ian Marchant and so went into One Fine Day: A Journey Through English Time with a sense of optimism which, it turned out, was entirely appropriate.
It's a personal and historical journey, sparked by Ian Marchant's discovery of a detailed diary kept by his seven-times-great-grandfather, Thomas Marchant, which covers his life from 1714 to 1728.
The book is framed as a dialogue between Ian Marchant in the present day (the 2020s) and his ancestor in the early 18th century. Marchant uses the diary as a lens to explore the daily life, politics, and social history of pre-industrial England, and it brilliantly connects past and present.
Not only is Ian undertaking this deeply personal project he's also contending with lockdown and a cancer diagnosis. That makes it sound like it could be a misery memoir however nothing could be further from the truth.
4/5
It's a personal and historical journey, sparked by Ian Marchant's discovery of a detailed diary kept by his seven-times-great-grandfather, Thomas Marchant, which covers his life from 1714 to 1728.
The book is framed as a dialogue between Ian Marchant in the present day (the 2020s) and his ancestor in the early 18th century. Marchant uses the diary as a lens to explore the daily life, politics, and social history of pre-industrial England, and it brilliantly connects past and present.
Not only is Ian undertaking this deeply personal project he's also contending with lockdown and a cancer diagnosis. That makes it sound like it could be a misery memoir however nothing could be further from the truth.
4/5
June 15, 2024
A lot of really good titbits here and there, very much the sort of book that aligns with the stream of consciousness of a sixty-something man, and if that isn't in my soul I don't know what is.
But sometimes Marchant gets a touch too personal for no obvious reason, or, at the other end, spends a touch too many pages talking about Belgian blast furnaces. I have to say though, it did grab me rather towards the very end as I realised the psychogeographical drivers behind the book. And I think Marchant has some good ideas about what's missing from latter-day England. It's a pity he's a damp-cloth-liberal-democrat.
Oh well! 3 stars.
But sometimes Marchant gets a touch too personal for no obvious reason, or, at the other end, spends a touch too many pages talking about Belgian blast furnaces. I have to say though, it did grab me rather towards the very end as I realised the psychogeographical drivers behind the book. And I think Marchant has some good ideas about what's missing from latter-day England. It's a pity he's a damp-cloth-liberal-democrat.
Oh well! 3 stars.
May 20, 2024
Really enjoyed his story telling about his ancestors combined with his own life. He is very good at making all those connections between social and industrial history. And everything interspersed with his sense of humour.
February 22, 2025
A truly excellent read, a joy from start to finish. Merchant has an absorbing style, deployed to good effect as he weaves us through a social history linked to the story of his distant ancestor. A time to stop and reflect on history and values.
July 18, 2023
4.5*
Meandering and engaging.
Meandering and engaging.
July 3, 2024
One of the best books I've read in a while. Made me laugh, cry, and rethink my identity.
June 17, 2023
Superb. I laughed and cried and was also fascinated by learning things I never knew. Would highly recommend.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews