A Gull on the Roof

The Minack Chronicles #1

by Derek Tangye

This is the original get away from it all book. Before people started writing about their tedious years in Provence or Tuscany or wherever, Derek Tangye and his wife gave up their urbane sophisticated life in London to move to a run down roofless cottage in Cornwall (that they could only lease, not buy) to earn a living from the land farming flowers - daffodils and violets - and potatoes in the 1950s!

The early part of the book has fascinating details about cultivating flowers and potatoes on sloping fields near a cliff edge throughout the capricious and unpredictable Cornish seasons, dealing with potato salesmen, local farmers and getting the flowers on to the British Rail flower train. It sounds hideously boring, but bizarrely it's incredibly readable.

You learn a lot about how much the UK has changed in the past 50 years or so and how places like Cornwall were in massive decay after the war. It's a great book to read if you're going down to Cornwall for a holiday and great to read if you want to get away in your mind at least from the grind of city life and dream about a simple, but very hard, life surrounded by nature and some lovely animals.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, British Literature, Biography, Nature, Biography Memoir

Paperback

First published January 1, 1961

About the author

During WWII, Derek Tangye worked for MI5 (the U.K.'s domestic counter-intelligence and security agency) and, after the war, he worked as a newspaper columnist. His wife, Jeannie Nicol Tangye, was a hotel PR executive. They both left their jobs in the city to move to a simple cottage on a flower farm in Cornwall.

Reviews

[Diane in Australia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Derek has written several books about leaving the rat-race in London for a flower farm in Cornwall, England. The series of books began with this book.

“My apprehension that evening was in reality an ally of the caution I had discarded, for in the morning we had set in motion our decision to leave London in favour of the bathless, paraffin lit two-roomed cottage called Minack and six acres of uncultivated land on the coast between Penzance and Land’s End. ... Our livelihood now depended upon the creation of a flower farm from this desolate, beautiful; country, aided not by any practical experience, but only by our ignorance as to what lay ahead."

If you've ever longed for the bliss of a life full of nature, and simple pleasures, you'll definitely want to read Derek's books.

5 Stars = Exceptional. It made a significant impact.

[Beth Bonini · Rating 3 out of 5]

”Time to think, time to read. Go down to the rocks and stare vacantly at the sea. Perform insignificant, slowly achieved tasks - weeding the garden, mending a bolt on the door, sticking photographs in an album - without conscience nagging us into guilt. Take idle walks, observe the flight of a raven, the shifting currents of the sea, the delicate shades of moss. Travel the hours on horseback. Timelessness, isolation and simplicity creating the space which would protect us from the past. The hazy happiness of the present guiding our future.”

In this first of its long (19 volume) series, journalist Derek Tangye and his wife Jeannie abandon their hectic professional and social lives in post-war London for the ‘simple life’ on a flower farm in Cornwall. Perhaps it was simple in some ways, but it was undeniably hard and stressful in others. I felt, reading this memoir, the same stress about the farming life that I experienced as a child reading the ‘Little House’ series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Each growing season involved the double whammy of back-breaking physical labour combined with debt, and all of it a huge gamble relying on the uncontrollable factors of weather and supply-and-demand economics. Invariably, it was a gamble which didn’t pay off.

Tangye’s writing is often charming, and he excels at bringing the personalities of animals and the local human characters ‘to life’, but I was never quite persuaded of the blissful nature of this venture.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

This whole 'MINACK' series is wonderful. A real escape into a gentle world. Can be difficult to locate the whole series but well worth the effort. Each book can also be read 'stand alone'.

[Sylvester (Taking a break in 2023) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Derek Tangye writes what I think of as a sleeper memoir - quiet and unassuming, but unforgettable. I love the subject matter: city people starting a daffodil farm, their animals, friends, and struggles. There's a little of James Herriot (stories about animals), a little of Lillian Beckwith (stories about local people), and a little magic that goes a long way. It's too bad that these books are so hard to find.

[Maddie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A change of pace is what Derek and Jeannie are pining for and decide to take the plunge to leave their cosmopolitan lifestyle in the city for a coastal farm where they set up a market garden growing potatoes and daffodils. They share their triumphs and disasters of establishing a ramshackled, remote cottage and sea battered landscape into a home that is theirs and that they can be truly proud of.

[Shani]

Before there were Provence and Tuscany there was Cornwall.
Derek Tangye and wife Jeannie decide to leave the ratrace city life behind and go to grow flowers for the market in Cornwall. The locals don't expect them to make it and their friends believe they are crazy but they manage to make a success of it against many odds and with lots of hard work.
This book is the first in a series of books of their life as market gardeners in Cornwall.

Read more about the Minack series at:
http://minack.info/

[Jill · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the setting of this book, the descriptions of the land and nature. The Tangyes worked very hard as growers and producers in the face of local scepticism. I had hoped for more on the animals and less on potatoes! But I think animals come into some of his other books more. That said, little Monty was a real star in the book. A very calming book and I will try others written by Derek Tangye.

[Ian Swinden · Rating 3 out of 5]

Recommended by my sister-in-law who had met the author but it completely failed to hold my attention. It seemed dated and it lost me at all the detail about growing potatoes in Cornwall.
I felt it needed more characterisation of the main characters - nothing about their backgrounds or relationship.
I didn’t finish the book, wanted to get back to a more stimulating read.

[Lila · Rating 5 out of 5]

A delightful memoir of life on a Cornish flower farm (violets and daffodils) that apparently never made it to the US. This is the first of a series of books with lovely descriptions of the animals and landscape, plus practical advice on flower growing. Recommended for anyone with an interest in violets.

[Daniela Sorgente · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a nice book that tells the true story of a husband and wife who quit their jobs in London in the 1950s to grow potatoes and flowers in Cornwall. Not everything goes as planned and adventures and misadventures are told with humour.

[Jill · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pleasant, nicely written autobiographical tale

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love the gentle feel of this book as well as the theme of escaping the rat race. Clearly they were also affected by WWII, living through the Blitz would made you question what is of value to you.

[Louella Ramsden · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting facts around farming and market dardening. Loved the way it accurately conveyed our lives at the mercy of nature. A little dated though.

[Saturday's Child · Rating 3 out of 5]

Finally got around to reading the first book in this series as I found a copy in the library. I do enjoy the stories by this author.

[Sue Swanborough · Rating 5 out of 5]

Must be at least 4th time of reading the series, my go to book for calm

[Jan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cornwall, a flower garden, writers, perfection.

[Joan Shaw · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read all Derek Tangye's book years ago and looked forward to re-reading them but I have to say it wasn't as good as I remembered

[Jonathan Hutchins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Marvellous, finely written account of the trials and tribulations experienced by a couple who gave up the pleasures of the meretricious metropolis for a life of trying to survive by growing and selling flowers and potatoes in far west Cornwall. The book was first published in 1961, but by this point they have struggled through their first few seasons and evidently achieved a measure of financial stability. As one who was also fortunate to live in Penwith, albeit briefly, and visited Lamorna regularly, this tale's setting is delightfully familiar. It's easy to see how it could have inspired people to leave the rat race for all the wrong reasons; easy too to cast a romanticised eye over it, but the author is always clear about their motives and the back-breaking and sometimes heart-breaking work involved in finally managing to survive. In their trial-and-error methods, unreliable or useless machinery, pointless bureaucrats, endless fretting over expenditure and income, and false hopes, as well the immediate post-war period in which it's set, it reminded me somewhat of Gavin Maxwell's 'Harpoon at a Venture'. Many sequels and anthologies followed, but this is the place to start. Vix bought this for me on a birthday holiday in Padstow, at the opposite corner of the County, over five years ago, but I finally devoured it only now, over two days on the seat in our gloriously flowery and green garden under a hot English sun.

[Jennifer Klenz · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first back the land memoir I ever read as long as you don't count the "little house" books. A married couple move from London to Cornwall and learn to grow and sell potatoes and daffodils if I remember correctly. At least that is how it starts. They live in a very simple cottage and life is particularly unglamorous but they persevere because the intangible rewards are great. This is what I remember, although it has been more than 20 years since I read any of the books.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful book which introduces you to the World of Minack created by Derek and Jeannie Tangye when they moved from their glamourous 40's London life to this remote spot in Cornwall where they made a new life for themselves growing daffodils. They had a succession of cats during this time starting with Monty who came with them from London. Lama, Ambrose, Oliver and Cherry followed. The Donkeys came a short while after they moved there with Penny first who was pregnant! with Fred. Followed by Merlin and Susie, both of whom had to go to the Donkey Sanctuary in Sidmouth after Derek died in 1996.
Jeannie wrote several books about her life in the Hotel industry as a Publicity Officer at the Savoy in London, where she was popular with many film star celebrities of the day including Danny Kaye.
Derek wrote over 20 books in the series of books now called The Minack Chronicles.He left a legacy of work that details their everyday life at Dorminack, near Lamorna in Cornwall.

You can meet up with many fans of the Chronicles on http://minack.info

[Liz Letcher · Rating 4 out of 5]

All of these books were honest and entertaining, but as a fellow grower in Cornwall I felt that too much was made of the disasters and not enough of the good seasons. Still a lovely, heart-warming account.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book about life on a beginning flower farm with two people who seem very unlikely to desire to live such a rural life. Cute and interesting.

[jean sargent · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant book I love reading about Cornwall as I’ve visited for many years.