I certainly never consulted any books not a word is accurate yet I got a medal for it, presented by a teacher with moist eyes. Written in copperplate handwriting, it starts: ‘The Dabchick or Dipper haunts streams and ponds and is called Dab or Dipper because it dabs or dips its bill in the water…’Īnd from this point onwards I am cheating, making it up, as I describe the nest-building habits and the way it feeds its young etc. I found my prize-winning effort, called The Dabchick, among some old papers the other day. Joe Roberts as the teenage Laurie Lee and Lia Barrow as Rosie Burdock One would hop up and down on her floor to create a disturbance, and the other would bang on the ceiling with a broom.
They were very cantankerous towards each other. Part of it was inhabited by two old ladies who we called ‘’er up top’ and ‘’er down under’. Lee’s Cottage was, and still is, shaped like a T. I only have to list the names - Brown, Green, Webb, White - monosyllabic names which were derived from wool-weavers, for me to be transported back to that intense intimacy which I shared with that community. My billowing sisters used to run up and down like butterflies, and the village women climbed up their steps and gathered in inscrutable, garrulous bunches to gossip about scandals, disasters and love affairs, clicking their tongues and rehearsing the age-old histories of village life. It was a great event when the wagoners drove by, bringing timber from the woods and pulled by as many as six horses. If a cart came, we’d see it half a mile away, advancing in clouds of white dust. There was no danger from traffic because there wasn’t any. This road was our social centre and playground, where we’d spin tops, roll marbles, play five-stones and chase the girls. Our cottage looked up a steep bank to a road that was built in the 18th century. When I returned after 20 years’ exile, I heard the blackbirds’ accent and knew I was home. Not many people know that in Slad the blackbirds sing with a Gloucestershire accent.
I knew every flower, weed, stoat, badger and bird. I lived there until I was 19 and left home to see the world and make my fortune. I was dumped into the long grass, aged three, and left grizzling among the beetles and grasshoppers. In those days, cottages were called by the family name, so ours was Lee’s Cottage. There were seven children, three inherited from Father’s first wife, who died young.
Home for most of my youth was a thick-walled Cotswold cottage in the village of Slad, near Painswick. Home for most of my youth was a thick-walled Cotswold cottage in the village of Slad, near Painswick
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