The Green Lane to Nowhere: The Life of an English Village

The Green Lane to Nowhere: The Life of an English Village

by Byron Rogers (Author)

Synopsis

Byron Rogers' second book chronicles the life and times of the small Northamptonshire village and its environs where he has lived for 20 years - a place almost exactly in the middle of England. Rogers ranges from the odd ways and practices of his present-day neighbours all the way back to the Roman times. Here, then, is the Methodist chapel that became a car showroom, the village's charabanc outing to the seaside, the strange story of the ancient church in the fields, the summer fete at which the author bought his neighbour's shirts, his elevation to heady civic responsibility as Warden of the Paths, and the pathos of the village's oldest resident finally having to move out of her ancestral home.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 272
Edition: Reprint
Publisher: Aurum Press
Published: 24 Apr 2004

ISBN 10: 1854109855
ISBN 13: 9781854109859

Media Reviews
These columns offer a wry, intelligent status report of rural English life. Rogers first describes how in 1980 he and his family bought a small cottage in the Northamptonshire village of Blakesley, moving to the country for reasons both sentimental and practical, as do many others. These newcomers, he notes, have dramatically changed village life: most of the men leave home before 9 a.m. to commute to city jobs, and townsfolk no longer bound to the land have little in common and don't know one another...Going against the current nostalgia for all things rural, Rogers demonstrates that life in the country has always been hard...Along his way, he meets with local aristocrats, talks to farmers overwhelmed with bureaucracy, and to the village's oldest inhabitant, who has seen the horse replaced by the car, a Methodist chapel turned into a showroom, and the railway station fall out of use. A thoughtful and deliciously entertaining collection.