Rural: The Lives of the Working Class Countryside
Rebecca Smith (William Collins, £18.99)
THE author, you’d say, was brought up posh, in a big house on a country estate, running free through the rhododendron groves, sailing on Windermere from a private beach, surrounded by carefully tended woods and the splendours of Nature. It didn’t exactly matter that none of it was hers, that it was all tied to her father’s job as the estate forester, except that when the job went, so did the house, the location and the life. The children had played with the children of the big house until they were sent to faraway schools. It was a defining moment for Rebecca Smith when the son of the house didn’t recognise her as she served him in the local pub.
“The new landlord is keen on rewilding,” explains a farmer’s wife, and you feel her dread
Part memoir, part history and part enquiry, sets out