GALLIPOT EYES (A Wiltshire Diary) by Elspeth Huxley

"I didn't choose Oaksey, it chose me", writes Elspeth Huxley in her preface to this evocative diary of village life.  She has lived there for thirty five years; makes no special claims for its antiquity or beauty but maintains simply that Oaksey, like all other 10 000 villages in England and Wales, is unique.

She kept this diary from April 1974 to March 1975.  Interwoven with her daily preoccupations (christening presents for the twins; which way up to plant asparagus crowns) she describes the people around her and the ever-changing patterns of village life.  We get glimpses of things that have caught her fancy: fox-cubs at play under her window, an elderly neighbour put to flight by an ITV camera team, a church spire against a winter sky.  With the schoolmaster she digs at the foundations of a buried medieval castle built by the earls of Hereford, an in the local library discovers the first identifiable lord of the manor to have been a Saxon diplomat whose flirtation with Duke William's future wife may have cost him his lands and his freedom after the Conquest.  From later history she presents some surprising 'finds', such as the rector who proclaimed the Old Testament to be a pack of fairy tales and the lady of the manor who rose at six every morning to make tea for her eight maids.

Although the old ways and skills are disappearing fast, village life remains an essential part of English society.  In this delightful cameo, Elspeth Huxley has captured all its charm and its changes with all the craft of a born writer.

Hard cover, good condition.  198 pages.