Would you like a copy of A Patch in the Forest by Elizabeth West?

 

Those of you who have been trying to buy a copy of A Patch in the Forest will know that it is out of print and that second hand copies are hard to come by and expensive. The cheapest I saw today was £ 28. So I was very pleased to hear from Phillippa. She told me she had found this book in a charity shop for only £ 1 and as she already owns a copy she is willing to give it to someone who will refund her costs   (£ 1 plus postage, Phillippa lives in the UK).

So: are you interested? If so, send me an email at farmsonmybookshelf@gmail.com before 1 January 2024.

All names received will be put in a hat and a name will be drawn on 1 January after which I will contact the lucky winner!

A little more on A Patch in the Forest by Elizabeth West

Blogreader Philippa tells me that she was able to find a copy of Elizabeth West's 'A Patch in the Forest' for £4 in Hay on Wye! Lucky her!

She also shared some information on the location of the house Elizabeth and Alan lived in:

I think that the house Elizabeth describes was in the Parkend area - the drawing of the church in the final chapter is unmistakeably St Paul's at Parkend, it is one of three churches in the Forest that are old enough to match her description - and the only one that has no stained glass and is surrounded by trees.  She mentions the local silver band being formed in 1893, and while Parkend Silver Band folded in the mid 20th century, it was then restarted a few years later and would have been active while she was writing the book.  I'm not aware of any other Silver Band in the Forest that started at the right time and was still active when the book was published.  Also, the tourist attractions she mentions in her book - Clearwell, Puzzle Wood, Mallards Pike, Soudley etc. form a circle with Parkend at the centre.  Of course, it is not possible to narrow down the house any further, but I thought you might be interested at least to know the name of the church. I certainly was!

Drawing of the church

Photo of the church

The Hovel, revisited

Sue, at My Quiet Life in Suffolk, just put up a great post about Elizabeth West's books. It includes photo's from a hardback copy of Hovel in the Hills, and pictures of the "Hovel" in 2005. Enjoy!

A Patch in the Forest by Elisabeth West (2001)

 

 

I bought this book years ago, but it is now out of print and second hand copies sell for 50 to 60 Euro's. The book has a few illustrations and no maps.

When Elizabeth West finished Garden in the Hills  she and Alan were preparing to leave their Hovel in the Hills because there was no way they could make a living there. Also they found that new roads and increased traffic meant they could no longer live there in peace. "We promised ourselves that one day, as soon as we were entitled to a state old-age pension, we would find another patch of land in a wild and lonely place and make another garden." In the early 90's, when they are both receiving pensions, the time has come to find a new place to live.

"Now that the time to make our plans had arrived we found that the passing years had modified our ideas. With old age ahead we didn't want our patch to be wild and lonely, nor did we reckon on coping with more than an acre of land. A place on the outskirts of a village or hamlet would be ideal - preferably on a no-through road and within a half-mile walk of a post office and bus service". After an 18 month search they buy a small house in the Forest of Dean. It has a garden with an enormous oak tree in it.

 

In 1993 they move in. The house was built in the early 1960's. Everywhere they look they find "workmanship of such incompetence that we almost begin to suspect malicious intent." So Alan does a lot of repairs. They create a kitchen and "back kitchen", remove some of the 24 doors, and rip out all the complicated water pipes and central heating, and "start again". They install an Aga in the kitchen, have an open fire in the living room and use electric heaters, when needed, in other rooms. They are allowed to gather brushwood in the forest and also buy locally dug coal.

The garden is about half an acre (on a slope). It does not get much direct sunlight, suffers from mists and frost and has bad soil (clay mixed with rubbish to level the site). Nevertheless they manage to create a beautiful garden there.  Their aim is to attract as much wildlife as possible. Part of the garden they leave "rough", part is a meadow (mown 3 or 4 times a year), there is a vegetable garden and a pond close to the house, with the rest of the garden given over to "flowers, shrubs and interesting plants." Strangely enough these include Japanese knotweed: "which we like, in spite of what the experts say." (Japanese knotweed is considered to be one of the most invasive species, which can displace many native plants).

Elizabeth describes all the vegetables they grow, stressing "this is how we do it and not suggesting how you should." They can be largely self-sufficient for most of the summer and autumn, but in winter they need the greengrocer. They grow (and dry) a lot of herbs, eat some weeds (like dandelion and chickweed), gather mushrooms and nuts.

Elizabeth and Alan clearly revel in living close to nature as becomes clear in the chapters on their observations of and encounters with birds, butterflies and other animals of the forest.

"Looking out for the birds that visit the garden is, of course, a non-stop activity in this household. We chat to them if they approach us and we mutter greetings if they are about their business in the hedge. If they are flying across the sky or soaring overhead we watch in silent admiration. This looking-out-for-the-birds activity continues even when the weather keeps us indoors, which means we spend a lot of time gazing from the windows."

"Our concern that butterflies should have food and appropiate facilities to carry out their complicated life cycles means that flowers are left to bloom for as long as they are useful and that plenty of rough grass, nettles and bramble thickets are available. We have noticed that chives are usually the earliest vegetable plants to bloom and they are very attractive to bees and butterlies. If we want to have plenty of chive leaves to eat we should really trim off the flower stalks, but we don't. The only answer is to have more chives."

Animals in the forest around them include deer, badgers, adders and squirrels. Elizabeth writes of the plans to introduce pine martens (a natural enemy to the grey squirrel) to the Forest, fearing it will mean a diminishing bird population (note: in 2019 18 pine martens were released in the Forest of Dean). Bats, frogs, toads and hedgehogs visit their garden.

"This invitation to our garden does not extend to that most ubiquitous Forest of Dean animal, the wandering sheep. " (...) "The men who own these sheep belong to a Commoner's Association through which they defend their rights to run sheep in the forest." Attempts to regulate grazing by sheep are not very successful (this still seems to be an issue today).

Elizabeth and Alan don't get many visitors, nor do they go away often. "Having spent most of our working lives engaged in various forms of humble employment (in between periods of unemployment) the need to earn a living had always occupied a lot of our time, thoughts and energies. But we no longer have to work for money, and the sense of freedom in exhilarating." They enjoy their own company, spending time in the garden, listening to music and reading. Elizabeth has become a fan of the bands and choirs in the Forest. And of course they often go for walks.

This book is a must for everyone who has enjoyed Hovel in the Hills and Garden in the Hills. Here's hoping Logastan Press will reprint!

Baking Bread, and Household Hints

Bara Hafod

A lot of "my" writers bake their own bread. Here is Elizabeth West's recipe, from Garden in the Hills.

"Put into a jug: 4 rounded teaspoonfuls of dried yeast, 3 rounded teaspoonfuls of sugar and about 1/4 of lukewarm water. Give it a stir around, cover with a cloth, and put to one side. Whilst you are waiting for the yeast to get working, weigh up 2 lb of flour - either wholemeal or plain white, or a mixture (I usually mix 11/2 wholemeal with 1/2 white). Put this into a mixing bowl. Sprinkle into flour a teaspoonful of salt. Mix well. Grease and flour two 1-lb bread tins. 

Now go and look at your yeast in the jug. It should be at least a quarter way up the jug, frothing and bubbling.  If it's not, then it's probably due to the yeast being stale - not necessarily your fault, I have found stale yeast in a newly opened tin - so give it a bit longer. In fact, go and do something else for ten minutes. If it is still the same when you come back, never mind. Carry on and use it. It just means that your bread won't rise quite so well. 

Make up the contents of the jug to about one pint with lukewarm water, and pour this into your flour. Using the right hand only (it's just as well to keep one hand clean) work the mixture around, squeezing and kneading between your fingers. After a while it should be one moist, pliable lump in the middle of your bowl, with no flour sticking to the sides. If it feels to dry, add some more lukewarm water. If, on the other hand, it is all sticky and wet, add some more flour. Divide the dough into equal pieces and put into your tins. Put the tins to one side, cover with a cloth and leave for about one hour. The dough should rise to the top of the tins (leave for longer if necessary). Put bread into a moderately hot oven for about 40 minutes. By this time you should be able to "bounce" them out of their tins (if they won't come out easily, slip a knife around their sides). I then usually put the loaves back into the oven, upside down, in order to get them crisp all over.

Please note that none of these measurements is critical. I have written down what I do. Alan doesn't measure anything. He simply throws in what he thinks looks right. Don't take any notice of instructions to "put it in a warm place to rise". You are more likely to put it into too warm a place. The temperature of the room in which you are working is quite adequate."

I notice there is very little kneading and only one rise, making it a simple recipe. During lockdown I made a similar "no-knead bread", which was OK, but I had to have my oven on, on its highest setting, for an hour, which I felt was using way to much energy for one small loaf. Besides, unlike Elizabeth West, there are many shops where I can buy bread near my home. Her telling us to knead with one hand reminds me of a friend who went to domestic science school in the sixties. She used to say that the one thing she remembered being taught was: always knead with one hand only, because the telephone might ring.

Household hints

Louise Dickinson Rich (whose We took to the Woods will be covered in a future post) tells us exactly how she butchers and preserves deer meat, which I guess not many of us will get a chance to do.  But she has two tips which I thought worth sharing:

- .... a pane of window glass which I put over my open cook book. I'm a messy cook, splashing flour and milk and batter and egg yolk all over the table. If they splash on the book, the pages will stick together and you can't use that recipe again, as I have found to my sorrow. If they splash on the glass, that's all right. Glass washes. 

- .... a way to crumb fish or croquettes or cutlets or what-have-you easily and quickly. I put my crumbs or flour in a paper bag, drop in the object to be crumbed, close the bag and shake violently. This does not sound like much of an invention but it saves an awful lot of mess. When you're through you have nothing to clean up. You just shove the paper bag into the stove and burn up the scanty leavings.

I'm going to try the crumbing in a bag. I usually use a plate and end up with my fingers coated in egg and crumbs, looking like they are ready to be fried too.

          

Elizabeth West: Garden in the Hills (1980)

On my first and. so far, only visit to Wales in the late nineties the weather was glorious. I volunteered at the Eisteddfod in Llangollen and cycled round North-Wales (visiting Dorothy Campion’s house en route, but that is another story). I now realize how lucky I was. The weather can be extreme there, especially at 1000 feet and Garden in the Hills can be used as a guide on how to garden at that height. Elizabeth and Allan found advice in gardening books often does not apply so they learned by trial and error and often just by 'what felt right'.

This is the sequel to Hovel in the Hills. It tells the story of how Elizabeth and Allan West made a garden and gives further insight into their life in the hills.
The book includes a map, which is one of the reasons I like it. I have pored over it, trying to place everything that is mentioned in the story. Where is the bluebell forest, and where is the drive? Never mind, I just love maps. 
Once again I find that Elizabeth is very good at writing about plants and animals, but not at describing people. The acknowledgments state that she has invented a few characters so that she could describe true incidents without causing embarrassment to real people. Well, I don’t think these real people will have been very pleased to find themselves represented by two nitwit Welsh farmers and a know-it-all retired teacher. Best to forget about them, the rest of the book is a joy to read.

 

Making a garden around Hafod involved a lot of hard work: clearing the garden, making paths, creating shelter, building fences to keep out rabbits and sheep (not always successful), and building a water garden around the spring that is the cottage’s only source of water. A special chapter is devoted to the long hot summer of 1976, when, at the end of a long dry period, it took 2 hours to fill a bucket at the spring.
There is a chapter on weeds, which can be very useful as ground cover and as pest food (keeping insects away from vegetables). Elizabeth also includes a list of weeds they regularly eat in salads.
Apart from growing fruit and vegetables they also forage, although it was not called that then. They use berries to make jam and wine and gather mushrooms. A list of all the crops grown is included with tips on which varieties to grow. Elizabeth and Alan find that using seed that they have saved themselves works best.
The garden is also filled with trees and flowers, some of which they have planted, some of which just  'happened'.  We bought crocuses and carnations. But who gave us the double snowdrops? Where did the marguerites come from? Those oriental poppies by the shippen?  They also rescue plants from roadworks or building sites.
There is a chapter on manure (which they get from a farmer friend) and the making of compost.
Though the word „ organic” is not used in the book, Elizabeth and Alan are certainly organic gardeners. They find they are not much bothered by pests, because of the wild plants (attractive to insects and birds) surrounding the vegetable garden and because of the healthy balance of predators and prey.
What comes through in the whole book is the joy they both find in their garden, in the butterflies, birds and other animals that are constant visitors.
One of my favourite chapters is on how Elizabeth keeps house. How does she cook (on a wood stove or an a primus stove) and what? She includes menus and recipes.
The books ends on a sad note. On the one hand there is the perpetual problem of earning money. They find they often have to leave Hafod for a few months to earn money elsewhere, but this is getting harder.
Also 'progress' in the form of road widening schemes and traffic is creeping up on them. So Elizabeth and Alan will have to leave Hafod.   But it won’t all be destroyed. Something will remain … In a hundred years’  years time when the cottage is perhaps a ruins, a lone walker coming across the moor may look down from the hillside and see the Hafod woodland, quiet and secluded at the base of the hill. (...) He will see all these things and he will know that in this wild and lonely place, someone once made a garden.

Hovel in the Hills by Elizabeth West (1977)

In Hovel in the Hills Elizabeth West describes how she and het husband Alan find their dream home in the country. The book covers the period of their lives from 1965 to 1974. My edition is a paperback from 1981, by which time the book had been reprinted 5 times. It is still in print today.

"The thing we both wanted, and were noticeably short of, was time. Time to think; time to ponder upon what life was all about. Now, if we paid cash for a small primitive cottage and a patch of land we would surely have the basics for a simple life that would not need a very high income to maintain."

Ellizabeth and Alan buy Hafod near Llanrwst in North Wales, for 1650 pounds.
There is no mains electricity, no running water and no sewer. A spring provides water and a solid fuel stove heats the cottage and is used for cooking. They use paraffin lamps and candles and some electricity is provided by their windcharger. And then there is the privy in the garden.
The house and outbuildings require a lot of repair and yearly upkeep. Fortunately Alan seems to be the ultimate handyman (or „botcher” as Elizabeth calls it), so he takes care of all that. Not everything can be solved, however: "during the winter months most people would consider the place unfit for habitation.With the coming of the cold weather, the walls of the cottage in every room often stream with condensation. (…) Following shortly after (…) comes the mould. (…) Any foodstuffs, clothing, shoes etc. left touching an outside wall will become saturated and sprout beautiful little tufts of white fur, and every article in all rooms except the kitchen will be affected by damp."
But they get by, by storing all important things in the kitchen, and anyway, they are not fussy about mod cons, perfectly happy to live this way.

The cottage lies at 1000 feet, making for a short summer season. Also, the winds are fierce, so gardening is a challenge. Nevertheless they create a garden which provides them with most of the food they need. They don’t keep animals, as work takes them away from Hafod every now and again.
Elizabeth delights in wild animals. Her chapters on birds are among my favourites in the book.

Before they bought the house, they were planning to find (part time) work locally, but this turns out to be almost impossible.They advertise in The Lady and work, for a few months at a time, as temporary live-in gardener/handyman and housemaid/nanny/cook for rich people. Even reading this in the 1980’s, this filled me with astonishment, as this was a totally alien world for me, but apparently completely normal in Britain.

They live a very frugal life and are foragers long before this concept becomes fashionable. The book can be read as a manual on how to live on very little money. Elizabeth is at her best when writing about coping for oneself and about plants and animals. What she is not so good at is people. This becomes more apparent in het later books, but even in this book you do get the impression that Elizabeth and Alan Know Best, and everyone else has become a slave to modern badly made gadgets and chemical fertilizers.

Searching the Internet in 2002 I found information by someone who was living in „Hafod” then, giving its name as Bron Haul, at Nebo, Garth Garmon, LLanrwst. I have not been able to find more recent information.

 

How it all started

Mam would be in Non-Fiction seeking her particular brand of genteel escape - sagas of couples who had thrown up everything to start a smallholding (gentleman farmers in the making) or women like Monica Dickens who had struck out on their own. Alan Bennett, Writing Home, p. 8.

How it all started

Sometime during the late '70's I bought Hovel in the Hills by Elizabeth West. Can't remember when, where or why, but after reading it I wanted more and so my collection started to grow. My favourite books include lots of domestic detail, chapters on gardens, not too much information on animals, and, of course, maps and lists. Unlike Alan Bennet's mum I am not keen on gentleman farmers, or (rich) people doing it just for fun. I once read a book by Adam Nicolson on his farm, but when I came across the line: "our children's nanny" I knew he had to go. 

So far, most of the books are by British authors (I am Dutch, but the Netherlands are just too small for this kind of thing) and most of them are written by women. Quite a few of them are not very well written, but that is part of their charm.

One of the joys of collecting this genre is that you never know what you will find where. Books can turn up anywhere in a secondhand bookshop: local history, gardening, biography, agriculture, who knows? On the other hand, searching on the Internet is not always easy as often only titles are given, which does not tell you much.

Many books left me feeling curious: what happened next? I tried to find out more, but did not get very far. That is one of the reasons for starting this blog. Also,  I hope to discover new titles, and of course I hope to hear from people who share my enthusiasm. Find my address at the top of the page.