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Sto caricando le informazioni... Running for the Hills: Growing Up on My Mother's Sheep Farm in Walesdi Horatio Clare
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Iscriviti per consentire a LibraryThing di scoprire se ti piacerà questo libro. Attualmente non vi sono conversazioni su questo libro. I picked this book up from my local library because I needed a book about sheep for one of my reading challenges. I wasn't sure from the title if I would enjoy it, but I since my wife is from England I thought I would enjoy reading about Wales as much as I enjoyed visiting the last time we went over. Wow. I was really surprised by this book. It is both about growing up on the sheep farm and about family, in equal parts. The book starts somewhat in the middle, then is told through the eyes of the author as a child growing up and continues in a natural order into his nearing adulthood. The storytelling is quite balanced and the author is honest about how life was on the farm with little money to manage it. He is also honest about the situation between his mother and father and what drives them to the decisions they make. I was surprised that I couldn't put the book down. I suggest that anyone who runs into this book should pick it up and give it a try. nessuna recensione | aggiungi una recensione
Premi e riconoscimenti
One summer's day in the late 1960s two young Londoners fell in love with a hill farm in South Wales. But they had almost no money, no idea about sheep, and their marriage was uncertain from the start. Their new home was a mile up the wild mountain, one end dug into its damp flank. It was ancient, cold and unbelievably primitive, with a view like a prospect of Africa. On a fair day it was paradise. But it was a working farm, cut off from the world and condemned - they found out, after they bought it - as 'unfit for human habitation'. This is the story of a passionate adventure; it is also the biography of a relationship, a portrait of an extraordinary way of life and an account of a bewitching childhood. From memory, conversations and the diaries of his now-separated parents, Horatio Clare reconstructs their relationship with each other and their mountain farm, and tells the story of his astonishing upbringing. At the fore is his mother, a wilful romantic, who chooses to make a life on the mountain single-handedly, and to raise her children there. Running for the Hills is a vivid memoir of love and struggle in a remote and magical place. Non sono state trovate descrizioni di biblioteche |
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Google Books — Sto caricando le informazioni... GeneriSistema Decimale Melvil (DDC)942.9092History and Geography Europe England and Wales WalesClassificazione LCVotoMedia:
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Clare's parents were working for newspapers in London when they decided to buy a country bolt-hole to get away from the city at the weekends. Not one for doing things by half measures, his mother Jenny fell in love with a decrepit farm house high up in the Welsh mountains and their second jobs as part-time sheep farmers began. This is not farming for the faint-hearted; the elevation up to the house is so steep it can be impossible to get even deliveries of oil at times, the weather is severe in winter and all year round there are heavy, intensive jobs to do with the animals, from lambing to sheering and dipping and moving the flock around the mountain. It quickly becomes obvious to Clare's father that they have bitten off more than they can chew, yet Jenny falls in love with the mountain solitude and before long they have drifted apart and Jenny is left single-handedly raising their two boys whilst managing the farm.
Part memoir, part fictional dramatisation from his parents' diaries, this book was more than I expected. Clare writes with unflinching honesty about the highs and lows of their extraordinary setting, not just from his childhood memories but also with an adult perspective of his mother's steely determination to hold onto her life on the mountain. Whilst he pays homage the idyll of his wild, outdoorsy childhood he equally doesn't hold back from facing square on the utter madness of his mother's decision to stick it out despite the financial and physical hardships they faced. She's a wonderful character under Clare's penmanship - eccentric, funny, wilful and brave, and he recognises that really hers is the true story to be told.
A wonderfully written book, and highly recommended to those who enjoy books set in nature.
4 stars - I'm looking forward to reading more by this author. ( )