Wood Pigeon Summers: Enchanting Novel Reminiscing Rural Life in The Chilterns during the 1950’s

Martin James, author of, “Wood Pigeon Summers”, is himself a life-long resident of Oxford and the Chilterns, and has used very real characters to form the basis of the book whose stories are worth remembering.

Synopsis of “Wood Pigeon Summers”:

The death of an old school friend prompts fond memories of long, hot, rite-of-passage summers spent bale-carting at the foot of the Chilterns during the 1950s. In those days, agriculture was still a relatively labour-intensive activity that bred and supported a cast of characters whose lives revolved around timeless villages, their fields, and their pubs.

Some of their stories, retold here, include jumble sale style-icons like Lil the local landlady; George, the local farmer whose ancestors date back to the Norman Conquest; Bruno the Latvian labourer who left everything to flee the Russian advance on his home during WW II; and Ron the general factotum gamekeeper come poacher.

Interwoven with the timeless stories of these characters whose lives depend on agriculture are those of early incomers to the hamlet such as Natasha and her sister Mary. They provide the two boys with memorable moments including trespassing in the local castle grounds to go bathing and dancing the night away to the sounds of traditional jazz in the ballroom of the local coaching inn.

It is a rural world that has almost completely disappeared now. But the entertaining, mostly carefree characters that inhabited it back then lived rich, sociable lives unencumbered by the stresses and strains of modern times. Their stories are worth remembering.

“Wood Pigeon Summers” is available from Waterstones: https://bit.ly/3htI2Fe.