Living in the Country
Life in Rural Northamptonshire from before the First World War
D A Judd
From the moment you pick up and start reading this book you get that lovely warm secure snug feeling. Of days down at the allotment tending the veg patch, self sufficiency, looking after a few chickens and with a pig out the back, and bees at the bottom of the garden under the fruit trees. You also get a good idea of self sufficiency within the village with baker, butcher, blacksmith, miller, undertaker, shoemaker, farmer and farm labourers aplenty and where the Doctor called around in his pony and trap. This book encompasses the early days of the motor car and those perilous days of men and their flying machines. You get a reality check when the First World War is mentioned and the author,s father, a village Policeman is sent off to the trenches. The author then tells of the freedom he had without his father around and all the tricks that boys get up to like collecting birds eggs, playing fox and hounds and then being bought back to reality with a zeppelin raid.
After the war it was a case of "the few" returning to the village and trying to come to terms with the horrors of what they had seen on the battlefields of Belgium and France.
The author's father does return to take up his Police duties and the rest of the book makes very interesting reading, I can recommend it.
As a follow up readers may also wish to obtain the book "Discovering Byfield" by John S H Russell BEM, ISBN 0-9551505-0-7, with some lovely photographs of the village.
Note - As far as I am aware D A Judd is no relation to me, as yet ....... but watch this space. David Judd