Author Description

After working for a number of years with deprived families and delinquent children in the slums of a NorthWest city, the author became so emotionally exhausted that he could no longer carry on with his job without risking a serious psychological breakdown. He and his wife decided that the only solution to the problem was to seek a simpler life in close touch with the healing properties of nature and away from the stress of urban pressures. They went to live in a wood hut in the foothills of North Wales where, in spite of the cramped and even primitive conditions, they eventually found peace. The simple placid existence of the local people, farmers and country folk, the village personalities are drawn with affection and humour in this book. There are many evocative passages reminiscent of earlier authors, especially Richard Jefferies, and the day to day life of the countryside and its inhabitants are described in loving detail and with true poetic sensitivity. Here is a book that is 'escapist' in the best sense of that word. It is deeply concerned with abiding human values and is an implicit criticism of certain elements of modern society which sets so much store by wordly success and the acquisition of material things. It is a book to read slowly and to dip into again and again to savour afresh its quiet philosophy and abiding poetry.