One summer following the Second World War, Robert Appleyard sets out on foot from his Durham village. Sixteen and the son of a coal miner, he makes his way across the northern countryside until he reaches the former smuggling village of Robin Hood's Bay. There he meets Dulcie, an eccentric, worldly, older woman who lives in a ramshackle cottage facing out to sea.

Staying with Dulcie, Robert's life opens into one of rich food, sea-swimming, sunburn and poetry. The two come from different worlds, yet as the summer months pass, they form an unlikely friendship that will profoundly alter their futures.

This was the very first book chosen for me by Mr. B’s Emporium as my monthly subscription gift from Christmas 2020 and read in February 2021. It is beautiful bucolic stuff of the Laurie Lee Cider with Rosie or As I walked out one Midsummer Morning flavour. I see there are inaccuracies ( alpacas, crab sticks and the like) but the mood and bygone feel is a joy.

Chosen by me as My Favourite Book of 2021, going to:-

1. Poodlesister
2. Earthcaroleanne
3. Greenbadger
4. Grovalskii
5. Paulanni
6. Fifna
7. Estelle1806
8. Mathgirl40
9. Mcsar
10. Valpete
11. Dark-Draco
12. Ythan
13 back to Cross-patch

Enjoy.

Starting an epic adventure travelling through the hands of like-minded BookCrossers.

Thanks for sharing your favourite book. I got a copy of this book for Christmas but I haven’t read it yet.

I’m putting a holding JE here as I am reading my own copy but don’t want to hold up this year’s roundabout. I will update this when I have finished it. Liking it so far.

ETA I carried on liking it! A lovely read, with a writing style that brought the landscape, the characters and the food to life.

Sending this on to earthcaroleanne.

It's arrived!

This is a lovely story set in the North East of England after the war. A young boy leaves home to seek adventure before he succumbs to a life down the pit and flourishes intellectually after a chance meeting with an eccentric woman in a decaying house in the woods. A whole new world is revealed to him. Although it tries a little too hard at the beginning with laboured descriptions, I felt six words are used when fewer would have sufficed. It did have beautiful descriptions and I could easily imagine everything until the final chapter which seemed a bit out of place. Also, I had a couple of question marks, for example an alpaca in 1940’s England? There was one sentence that jumped out at me relating to current events "Build bigger bombs and better bombs .... there'll be another angry little man along in due course".

Sending on in the roundabout.

After an amazingly slow journey in the post this has arrived this morning, thank you!

This is a beautiful book. Set just after World War II, the young Robert Appleyard, not keen on starting down the pit, goes wandering. Getting a little work as a labourer where he can, sleeping under hedgerows, living off the land, and roaming where he will. Eventually he meets Dulcie - an eccentric older woman living alone, and with parts of her home falling into disrepair. Robert stays to fix things up and is introduced to fine food, wine, and a world far removed from his pit village. D.H. Lawrence is mentioned repeatedly in the book and I found this reminded me a bit of Lawrence - Dulcie says it's about class but I think it's also about a segment of people losing their connection to the land, and we see the contrast between the industrial, polluted area in which Robert lives and his first sight of the sea away from shipbuilding. And of course this book is also about class.
My grandad grew up in a mining village where it was expected that everyone would go down the pit. He escaped by becoming a teacher.
I don't think nowadays it would be possible to do what Robert did, to wander getting work here and there. That way of life has gone. Of course many of the mining communities have also been destroyed as pits closed.
Anyway, I absolutely loved this, especially the descriptions of nature, and will look out for more by this author.

Sent to grovalskii who is next in the ray.