Book #18 The Darling Buds of May

The Darling Buds of May by H.E. Bates
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Celebrating 60 perfick years of the Larkins

Wonderful stuff. I loved the TV adaptations of the Larkin family, broadcast in the 90s. Saw this Penguin reissue with the delightful art-deco cover and snapped up a copy. H.E. Bates used my neck-of-the-woods as the location - the garden of England - the county of Kent, near the village of Pluckley. Pure nostalgia for me - strawberry picking, cherry blossom, home baking, balmy Kent evenings and the song of the nightingale.

The Darling Buds of May follows the raucous adventures of the Larkin clan and the local tax collector. Ma and Pop Larkin have a large brood, living in 1950s rural England. Six children, the eldest is Mariette (they were going to name her Marie-Antoinette but thought it too long!). When the local tax inspector Cedric Charlton arrives to challenge Pop Larkin that he has never filled in a tax return, well - the fun begins. Soon to be called Charley by the family (found 'Cedric' too pretentious) he becomes smitten with the beautiful Mariette and persuaded not to go back to his office but enjoy a prolonged stay with the Larkins....

It's fun, it's full of laugh out loud moments - a comedy of country manners - and takes me right back to my childhood in the 50s in the unspoilt countryside of Kent. Full of wonderful characters and hilarious moments.

I loved it!

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Book #80 The Nightingale

The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Nightingale will linger long in my mind. I have ready many factual accounts about French resistance and the Maquis. I do not recall reading such a spellbinding fictional account such as this. It has left an indelible memory of the bravery and courage of two sisters, each involved in the 2nd World War in juxtaposed places. Each face the horrors of the Nazi occupation of France, endure deprivations that are heartbreaking, atrocities so inhumane as to leave one reeling with a profound sense of anger and loss. The final redemption is bitter-sweet and defines fear and love in a time of war. Other reviewers have explored the plot in greater detail. For me the story of Vianne and Isabelle is beautifully written and required a great deal of research by the author Kristin Hannah.

It is a remarkable novel - one of my best reads this year and highly recommended.

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Nightingale under catastrophic threat

There is no other bird that sings so deeply, so full of ecstasy as the nightingale. The melody is endlessly varied. Nightingales are best known for their singing talent. In the spring, they sing during the day as well as at night. As a youngster growing up in East Kent, to hear the nightingale sing in Spring was almost as commonplace as hearing blackbird, song thrush or robin. No longer.

Over the years the geographical range of the nightingale has shrunk. Habitat loss, changes in farming practices, climate change and hunters have contributed to the decline of this beautiful song bird. In the United Kingdom this migrant from Africa will no longer be found anywhere north of a line drawn from the Humber to the Severn estuary. Hotspots for the nightingale are still to be found in the south of England and it is now more important than ever to ensure that these sites are protected, lest we are to see the ultimate extinction of this bird from our territory.

Lodge Hill on the Hoo Peninsula of the North Kent coast is a nationally protected wildlife site and is home to a nationally-important population of nightingales. And yet, Medway Council’s Planning Committee has approved an Outline Planning Application by Land Securities on behalf of the Ministry of Defence for the development of 5,000 homes on the 330 hectare Chattenden Woods and Lodge Hill Special Site of Scientific Interest (SSSI). This decision, announced on the 4th of September, will directly destroy 144 hectares of the SSSI, one of the largest losses of a SSSI since the Wildlife and Countryside Act came into force in 1981. The decision is in direct conflict with the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF).

Lodge Hill is a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), designated by the Government’s statutory authority for the natural environment - Natural England. It was designated for the dense breeding population of nightingales that comprise more than one per cent of the entire UK population. Between 1995 and 2008, the numbers of UK nightingale population more than halved (53 per cent).

For Medway Council to approve this proposal is both arrogant and contemptible and shows a complete disregard for Natural England’s site designation. It puts greed and truculence before any consideration for conservation, before any consideration for the preservation of a song bird, that should be paramount.

If this development goes ahead it will be a crime of magnitude that would lead to irretrievable loss. It must not be allowed to happen.