Fen and Marshland Villages : A Portrait in Old Photographs and Picture Postcards by Anthony Day - 1993

S. B. Publications, Seaford, East Sussex, 1993. First Edition. Softcover. Very Good Condition/No Dust Jacket. They lie calmer than any sea from the fringes of Cambridge into marshland to The Wash, far into Norfolk and Lincolnshire, more often than not emptier of life than when they were under water. The fields of the fens and marshland today are forbidden places for all but the few who till them, flowerless, in all shades of unbroken green in summer - corn green, sugarbeet, carrot, celery, dark potato and pale lettuce green, and where you spot the land returning to its old waterlogged state you come across a polythene ocean forcing the salad plants along. Gone are the hoeing and harvesting gangs, the women and boys crawling along the land singling sugarbeet or heads-down sowing or gathering potatoes. The Norfolk bonnets have long since been set aside or given to the folk museums. There are no autumn stacks to catch the setting sun. As a fenman and painter I love the space around me but I miss the warm features I found into the 1960s. The four tidy stacks I put into a painting of 1964 happened to be the last built by that farmer who then acquired a combine harvester. Now the views are accented by serried ranks of new trees, by the lone tractor trailing its venomous wings, the combines moving like giant snails, the sugarbeet harvester tumbling its roots into the empty trailer alongside and the potato lifter sheltering its crew of sorters behind heavy cloths. Yet the light and the skies - those huge skies are the same - or, should I say, never the same from one day to the next where the unobstructed horizon is my birthright. Offered here are glimpses of life not so very long ago in the villages of fen and marshland, situated above the level, built there to manage the land around. Those I interviewed there had much the same story to tell of a lost way of life, set against the gains. These gains are indisputable. Improved sanitation and electricity were blessings when they came to these isolated communities but the car that began as a novelty and luxury too soon became a necessity to get to work. In such a short space of time, after hundreds of years of little change these villages lost their innate character and community spirit. The local speech telling us how people spoke hundreds of years ago is giving way to outside influences. Such was unthinkable a few decades ago. Size: Oblong 24mo - over 5" - 5¾" tall. 104 pages. Binding is tight, covers and spine fully intact. Previous owner's name & address in ink to title page. Black titles spine. light fading to top edge & spine of covers. illustrated by b/w. photo's.. Quantity Available: 1. Shipped Weight: Under 500 grams. Category: Genealogy & Local History; East Anglia; Fenland; Fens; England; History. ISBN: 1857700414. ISBN/EAN: 9781857700411. Pictures of this item not already displayed here available upon request. Inventory No: 3895. . 9781857700411