As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning by Laurie Lee

[Janet]

 

As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning by Laurie Lee

 

The ‘blurb’

It was 1934 and a young man walked to London from the security of the Cotswolds to make his fortune. He was to live by playing the violin and by labouring on a London building site. Then, knowing one Spanish phrase, he decided to see Spain. For a year he tramped through a country in which the signs of impending civil war were clearly visible. Thirty years later Laurie Lee captured the atmosphere of the Spain he saw with all the freshness and beauty of a young man's vision, creating a lyrical and lucid picture of the beautiful and violent country that was to involve him inextricably.

 

This is the first of two sequels to Cider with Rosie and I found it to be equally enjoyable. Lee sets off to London at the age of nineteen, planning to meet up with a girlfriend. After diverting to the south coast of England because he’s never seen the ‘proper’ sea before, and surviving successfully by busking with his violin, he arrives in London, moving in with his girlfriend and her family.

 

Eventually he finds digs and a job in Putney and begins working on a building site. After about a year in London, he decides the time is right to go travelling. Knowing the Spanish for 'Will you please give me a glass of water?', he decides that Spain is the obvious choice and so boards a ship and sets off with a backpack and his trusty violin.

 

Arriving in Spain in July 1935, what follows is a series of adventures as he travels from Vigo on the North West coast of Spain through such places as Valladolid, Madrid, Toledo, Valdepeñas, Cordova, and Seville. He travels from small town to small town, village to village, finding hospitality with generous and kindly Spanish peasants - and although he pays his way, supporting himself again with his busking - they share more than just food and lodgings with him as they take him into their lives. He really experiences rural Spanish life in all its colourful glory.

 

 

Eventually he arrives in Almuñécar on the Southern coast, where he remains for some time. With Spain now at civil war, he is evacuated on 1 August 1936 on HMS Blanche which had been sent to rescue British citizens, but feeling restless, and also a sense of wanting to be involved in the war on what he believes is the correct side, he travels back to Spain. The book ends with a brief chapter about him crossing the Pyrenees from France back into Spain, and sets the scene for the final part of his autobiography, A Moment of War.

 

 

The easy writing style of Cider With Rosie carries on in this book, as Lee paints a vivid picture of Spanish life and the people who he feels so at home with. I am looking forward to reading the final instalment.