Ronald Blythe releases a new book as he turns 100

The author, who was born in Acton near Sudbury, now lives in Wormingford, on the Suffolk/Essex border, in an early 17th century farmhouse inherited from artist and close friend John Nash. Its placement, at the end of a long dirt track, provides a sanctuary away from an increasingly mechanised world, and allows Ronal to continue to revel in the joys of the natural world.  

Although his faith and work for the church has dominated his life for decades – he was appointed a lay canon in 2003 and his column for The Church Times ‘A Word From Wormingford’ is still a wry must read – Ronald's enduring claim to fame has to be his 1969 novel Akenfield, a moving and atmospheric look at rural life stretching from 1880 to 1966. 

The book was such a huge success, drawn from a series of interviews with Suffolk natives Blythe conducted between 1966-67, that it was immediately turned into a film by Suffolk-born National Theatre director Peter Hall. 

In keeping with the spirit of the Blythe’s novel, Hall opted to cast his film with local actors and the residents of Charsfield and Debach, the villages that Blythe merged in order to create his fictional settlement.

Shot at weekends over 18 months to accommodate the work schedules of the amateur actors the film, like the original novel, caught the unchanging nature of life in the Suffolk countryside during the early years of the 20th century. 

When Hall’s film screened on BBC1 in late 1974 it was watched by 15 million viewers, prompting another wave of sales for Blythe’s novel, and confirming its status as a contemporary classic – although it was primarily an evocation of a world that was already passing. 

Ronald with his medal for services to literature (Image: Newsquest)

In an interview with this paper in the mid-1970s, he said: “When I wrote Akenfield, I had no idea that anything particular was happening, but it was the last days of the old traditional rural life in Britain. And it vanished just as the book came out.  

“Although I actually haven't worked this land but I have seen the land ploughed by horses, so I have a feeling and understanding in that respect.” Akenfield, the novel, is a study of what people regarded as a timeless way-of-life, but Ronald could recognise signs of change – although resolutely unsentimental, his book was eulogy for a rural idyll that had lasted for nearly two thousand years. 

By using the words of the real farmworkers and their families, Blythe dealt matter-of-factly with the notions of life, death, farming, religion and the countryside. 

An indication of just how prescient Ronald had been was demonstrated in 2004 when he met Sir Peter Hall and Akenfield cast members Peggy Cole and Garrow Shand at Hoo Church to shoot extras for the DVD release of the film. 

In the 40 years since he carried out his research interviews for the book, the Suffolk countryside had shifted from being a predominantly working landscape to a leisure resource and a residential backdrop. 

It was something that Sir Peter and Ronald discussed as they were filmed visiting old locations. 

Ronald with Sir Peter Hall (Image: Ronald Blythe Collection)

Talking to Blythe, as they looked out over the countryside surrounding Hoo church, Sir Peter observed: "It's amazing how the place has changed. I think we did the film at exactly the right time - although we didn't know it then - because it captured a world on the cusp of very great change. Farming and therefore the countryside has undergone some enormous changes in the last 30 years, and I think Akenfield came along at exactly the right time to record those changes." 

Ronald agreed: “"I think what makes Akenfield so popular – both the book and the film – is that it captures the spirit of Suffolk. It's everyone's story. It's not the story of one person, or one family or even one village - it's everyone's story and I think that it strikes a chord.” 

Speaking to me later over lunch, Blythe expanded on the theme: “Akenfield is about the Suffolk people, it's about growing up, about moving away, about staying at home, about the countryside - it's about the generations. It's about us as Suffolk people. 

"It's extraordinary that a book I wrote in 1967, which is a world away from us now, and a film made in 1973/74, can have such an amazing and very gratifying hold over people's affections. 

"When I wrote the book, I still had access to people who lived and fought in the First World War. I had people had worked on the land during the first half of the century. I had first-hand memories to work from. All that has gone now." 

A harvest scene from Akenfield (Image: Contributed)

It is not surprising Ronald ended up making his living as an author, because his love of books and reading began at a very young age.  

In an interview in 2001 for Anglia Ruskin University he described himself as "a chronic reader", in his youth immersing himself in French literature and writing poetry. He served during the early years of the Second World War before being demobbed in early 1944 when he gained, what was at the time. his dream job as a reference librarian in Colchester's Old Library. 

He gained a social life cycling 15 miles to Colchester from his home in Sudbury to keep company with the young intellectuals and artists of the town – they progressed round the town’s traditional pubs having a half pint in each one putting the world to rights, expounding theories about the latest literary works they had just read, before heading home. 

Garrow Shand in Akenfield (Image: Contributed)

“No one had much money but it was a good pub time, a great time for talking,” he recalled later. “People weren't getting drunk or anything like that. There was no music. There were just quiet places where people used to meet each other.

“I was incessantly reading. We went to the old Repertory Theatre and then went for little meals at Neal & Robarts in the High Street - which we thought was very sophisticated. We'd go downstairs and there would be all the actors from the theatre.” 

It was in 1954 that Ronald first plucked up the courage to take the plunge and become a professional writer. Through his work at the library he had met Christine Nash, wife of the artist John Nash, and they both encouraged him to pursue his ambitions.

The artistic couple even found him a small house near Aldeburgh and introduced him to Benjamin Britten, who put Blythe to work writing programme material and doing translations for Aldeburgh Festival. 

Through his association with Britten, Blythe then met such distinguished writers are EM Forster and Patricia Highsmith. In 1960, after he published his first book A Treasonable Growth, a novel set in the Suffolk countryside, he became friends with Cedric Morris and Arthur Lett-Haines, who founded the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing at Benton End, near Hadleigh, and nurtured the talents of a young Maggi Hambling.  

A classroom scene from Akenfield (Image: Peggy Cole)

This friendship inspired his visual creativity. "I was a poet but I longed to be a painter like the rest of them," Blythe said 10 years ago in a 90th birthday interview. "What I basically am is a listener and a watcher. I absorb, without asking questions, but I don't forget things, and I was inspired by a lot of these people because they worked so hard and didn't make a fuss. They just lived their lives in a very independent and disciplined way.” 

But, Blythe, who was awarded the CBE in 2017 for services to literature, stayed true to his original calling and his latest book, Next To Nature: A Lifetime in the English Countryside, published to mark his centenary, does tap into the visual aspect of his personality. 

It’s a collection of Blythe’s writing which reflects on his skills of observation and draws an accurate picture on our changing world – both in nature and how we live. His publisher Nick Davies said: “It is a celebration of one of our greatest living writers and an inspiration to a generation of nature writers, social historians, diarists, believers and non-believers alike. 

“From his home at Bottengoms Farm Ronald Blythe has spent almost half a century observing the slow turn of the agricultural year, the church year, and village life in a series of rich, lyrical rural diaries.” 

Blythe added: “A poet friend once advised me to ‘Put everything down. The total will surprise you.’ I took him at his word. For over 25 years I kept a day-book – a journal of life in a quiet corner of the English countryside. The total must run to over one million words. It has been a joy to revisit those diaries for this selection.” 

The book includes an introduction from Blythe’s close friend Richard Mabey, as well as shorter contributions from Julia Blackburn, Mark Cocker, Ian Collins, Maggi Hambling, Alexandra Harris, Richard Holloway, Olivia Laing, Robert Macfarlane, James Hamilton-Paterson, Hilary Spurling, Frances Ward and Rowan Williams. The cover features two oils by Blythe’s great friend and key supporter, artist John Nash. 

Next To Nature: A Lifetime in the English Countryside, by Ronald Blythe, is published by John Murray Press and is out now.