Cider with Rosie
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''Cider with Rosie'' is a 1959 book by Laurie Lee (published in the US as ''Edge of Day: Boyhood in the West of England'', 1960). It is the first book of a trilogy that continues with ''
As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning ''As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning'' (1969) is a memoir by Laurie Lee, a British poet. It is a sequel to ''Cider with Rosie'' which detailed his early life in Gloucestershire after the First World War. In this sequel Lee leaves the securit ...
'' (1969) and '' A Moment of War'' (1991). It has sold over six million copies worldwide. The novel is an account of Lee's childhood in the village of
Slad Slad is a village in Gloucestershire, England, in the Slad Valley about from Stroud on the B4070 road from Stroud to Birdlip. Slad is notable for being the home and final resting place of Laurie Lee, whose novel ''Cider with Rosie'' (1959) ...
, Gloucestershire, England, in the period soon after the
First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
. It chronicles the traditional village life which disappeared with the advent of new developments, such as the coming of the motor car, and relates the experiences of childhood seen from many years later. The identity of Rosie was revealed years later to be Lee's distant cousin Rosalind Buckland.


Summary

Rather than follow strict chronological order, Lee divided the book into thematic chapters, as follows: * ''First Light'' describes Laurie arriving with his mother and the rest of the family at a cottage in the Cotswolds village of
Slad Slad is a village in Gloucestershire, England, in the Slad Valley about from Stroud on the B4070 road from Stroud to Birdlip. Slad is notable for being the home and final resting place of Laurie Lee, whose novel ''Cider with Rosie'' (1959) ...
, Gloucestershire. The children gorge themselves on berries and bread as their harassed mother tries to get the cottage and the furniture into some kind of order. The house relies on a small wood-fire for the cooking and a hand pump in the scullery for its water. They are visited by a man in uniform who is sleeping out in the surrounding woods – he visits them in the mornings for food and to dry out his damp clothes. He is finally taken off by men in uniform as a deserter. The chapter ends with the villagers riotously celebrating the end of the Great War. * ''First Names'' describes Laurie still sleeping in his mother's bed until he is forced out of it by his younger brother, Tony, and made to sleep with the two elder boys. As he grows older, he starts to recognise the villagers as individuals: Cabbage-Stump Charlie, the local bruiser; Albert the Devil, a deaf mute beggar; and Percy-from-Painswick, a clown and ragged dandy who likes to seduce the girls with his soft tongue. Owing to its location, the cottage is in the path of the floods that flow into the valley, and Laurie and his family have to go outside to clear the storm drain every time there is a heavy downpour, though even this sometimes fails to stop the sludge despoiling their kitchen. * ''Village School'' :The female teacher is called Crabby B, owing to her predilection for suddenly hitting out at the boys for no apparent reason. However, she meets her match in Spadge Hopkins, a burly local farmer's boy, who leaves the classroom one day after placing her on top of one of the cupboards. She is replaced by Miss Wardley from Birmingham, who "wore sharp glass jewellery" and imposes discipline that is "looser but stronger". * ''The Kitchen'' This chapter describes the Lees' domestic life. At the beginning Lee makes a reference to his father, who had abandoned them, saying that he and his brothers never knew any male authority. After working in the Army Pay Corps their father entered the Civil Service and settled in London for good. As Lee says, :Lee describes each member of the family and their daily routine, his sisters going off to work in shops or at looms in Stroud, and the younger boys trying to avoid their mother's chores. In the evenings the whole family sits around the big kitchen table, the girls gossiping and sewing as the boys do their homework and the eldest son, Harold, who is working as a lathe handler, mends his bicycle. * ''Grannies in the Wainscot'' describes the two old women who were the Lees' neighbours, Granny Trill and Granny Wallon, who were permanently at war with each other. Granny Wallon, or 'Er-Down-Under, spends her days gathering the fruits of the surrounding countryside and turning them into wines that, over the course of a year, slowly ferment in their bottles. Granny Trill, or 'Er-Up-Atop, spends her days combing her hair and reading her almanacs. As a young girl she had lived with her father, a woodsman, and she still seeks comfort in the forest. The two old women arrange everything so that they never meet, shopping on different days, using different paths down the bank to their homes, and continuously rapping on their floors and ceilings. One day Granny Trill is taken ill and quickly fades away. She is soon followed by Granny Wallon, who loses her will to live. * ''Public Death, Private Murder'' describes the murder of a villager made good who returns from New Zealand to visit his family, boasts about his wealth and flaunts it in the local pub. The police try to find his attackers but are met by a wall of silence, and the case is never closed. * ''Mother'' is Lee's tribute to his mother, Annie (née Light). Having been forced to leave school early because of her mother's death, and the need to look after her brothers and father, she then went into domestic service, working as a maid in various large houses. Having left to work for her father in his pub, The Plough, she then answered an advertisement, "Widower (four children) Seeks Housekeeper" and met the man who became Lee's father. After four happy years together, and three more children, he abandoned them. Lee describes his mother as having a love for everything and an extraordinary ability with plants, being able to grow anything anywhere. As he says, * ''Winter and Summer'' describes the two seasons affecting the village and its inhabitants. During one particularly cold winter the village boys go foraging with old cocoa-tins stuffed with burning rags to keep their mittenless hands warm. The week before Christmas the church choir goes carol-singing, which involves a five-mile tramp through deep snow. Calls at the homes of the squire, the doctor, the merchants, the farmers and the mayor soon fill their wooden box with coins as they light their way home with candles in jamjars. In contrast, the long hot summer days are spent outdoors in the fields, followed by games of "Whistle-or-'Oller-Or-We-shall-not-foller" at night. * ''Sick Boy'' is an account of the various illnesses Lee suffered as a young boy, some of which brought him to the brink of death. He also writes about the death of his four-year-old sister Frances, who died unexpectedly when Lee was an infant. * ''The Uncles'' is a vivid description of his mother's brothers, his uncles Charlie, Ray, Sid and Tom. All of them fought as cavalrymen in the Great War and then settled back on the land, though Ray emigrated to Canada to work on the transcontinental railway, the Canadian Pacific, before returning home. * ''Outings and Festivals'' is devoted to the annual village jaunts and events. Peace Day in 1919 is a colourful affair, the procession ending up at the squire's house, where he and his elderly mother make speeches. The family also makes a four-mile hike to Sheepscombe to visit their grandfather and Uncle Charlie and his family. There is also a village outing on charabancs to
Weston-super-Mare Weston-super-Mare, also known simply as Weston, is a seaside town in North Somerset, England. It lies by the Bristol Channel south-west of Bristol between Worlebury Hill and Bleadon Hill. It includes the suburbs of Mead Vale, Milton, Oldmix ...
where the women sunbathe on the beach, the men disappear down the side-streets into pubs and the children amuse themselves in the arcade on the pier, playing the penny machines. There is also the Parochial Church Tea and Annual Entertainment, to which Laurie and his brother Jack gain free admittance for helping with the arrangements. They finally get to gorge themselves on the food laid out on the trestle-tables in the schoolhouse and Laurie plays his fiddle accompanied by Eileen on the piano to raucous applause. * ''First Bite at the Apple'' describes the growth of the boys into young adolescents and the first pangs of love. Lee states that "quiet incest flourished where the roads were bad", and states that the village neither approved nor disapproved, but neither did it complain to authority. Lee is seduced by Rosie Burdock underneath a haywagon after drinking cider from a flagon: :There is also a plan among half a dozen of the boys to rape Lizzy Berkeley, a fat 16-year-old who writes religious messages on trees in the wood, on the way back from church. They wait for her one Sunday morning in Brith Wood, but when Bill and Boney accost her she slaps them twice and they lose courage, allowing her to run away down the hill. Lee says that Rosie eventually married a soldier, while Jo, his young first love, grew fat with a Painswick baker and lusty Bet, another of his sweethearts, went to breed in Australia. * ''Last Days'' describes the gradual breaking up of the village community with the appearance of motor cars and bicycles. The death of the squire coincides with the death of the church's influence over its younger parishioners, while the old people just drop away: :Lee's own family breaks up as the girls are courted by young men arriving on motorcycles. This marks the end of Lee's rural idyll and his emergence into the wider world. :This is also the time when Laurie Lee experiences the first stirrings of poetry welling up inside him.


Adaptations

''Cider with Rosie'' was dramatised for television by the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
on 25 December 1971, with '' Country Life'' later commenting that
Hugh Whitemore Hugh John Whitemore (16 June 1936 – 17 July 2018) was an English playwright and screenwriter. Biography Whitemore studied for the stage at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, where he was taught by Peter Barkworth, then on the staff at RADA ...
's script was "rendered into a beguiling, sunny fantasy under
Claude Whatham Claude Whatham (7 December 1927 in Manchester – 4 January 2008 in Anglesey) was an English film and TV director mainly known for his work on dramas. Early life In 1940, Whatham, a teenage evacuee art student, had been commissioned to paint f ...
's softly focused direction." Music was by
Wilfred Josephs Wilfred Josephs (24 July 1927 – 17 November 1997) was an English composer. Life Born in Gosforth, Newcastle upon Tyne, the fourth and youngest son of Russian and South Shields Jewish parents, Wilfred Josephs had his first musical studies in Ne ...
, and
Rosemary Leach Rosemary Anne Leach (18 December 1935 – 21 October 2017) was a British stage, television and film actress. She won the 1982 Olivier Award for Best Actress in a New Play for ''84, Charing Cross Road'' and was nominated for the BAFTA Award fo ...
was nominated for the
British Academy Television Award for Best Actress This is a list of the British Academy Television Awards for Best Actress. The British Academy Television Awards began in 1955. The Best Actress award was initially given as an "individual honour", without credit to a particular performance, until ...
for her roles as Lee's mother and as Helen in ''The Mosedale Horseshoe''. Also in the 1970s, the book was turned into a stage play by
James Roose-Evans James Roose-Evans (11 November 1927 – 26 October 2022) was a British theatre director, priest, and writer on experimental theatre, ritual and meditation. In 1959 he founded the Hampstead Theatre Club, in London; in 1974 the Bleddfa Centre for ...
. It was performed in the West End and later at the
Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds The Theatre Royal, formerly the New Theatre, is a restored Regency theatre in Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, England. The building is one of eight Grade I listed theatres in the United Kingdom, and is the only working theatre operated under the a ...
, and at the Phoenix Arts Theatre, Leicester, with
Greta Scacchi Greta Scacchi, OMRI (; born 18 February 1960) is an Italian-Australian actress. She holds dual Italian and Australian citizenship. She is best known for her roles in the films '' White Mischief'' (1987), '' Presumed Innocent'' (1990), '' The Pl ...
. In 1998, not long after the death of Laurie Lee, Carlton Television made the film '' Cider with Rosie'' for the
ITV network ITV is a British free-to-air public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television network. It was launched in 1955 as Independent Television to provide competition to BBC Television (established in 1936). ITV is the ol ...
, with a screenplay by John Mortimer and with archive recordings of Laurie Lee's voice used as narration. The film starred
Juliet Stevenson Juliet Anne Virginia Stevenson, (born 30 October 1956) is an English actor of stage and screen. She is known for her role in the film ''Truly, Madly, Deeply'' (1991), for which she was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leadi ...
and was first broadcast on 27 December 1998. The book was also adapted for
BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...
in 2010. There was a second BBC Television production for
BBC One BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, ...
, directed by
Philippa Lowthorpe Philippa Lowthorpe (born 27 December 1961) is an English film and television director. She was awarded the Deluxe Director Award at the WFTV Film and Television Awards for the miniseries '' Three Girls''. She recently directed episodes of the ...
, with
Samantha Morton Samantha Jane Morton (born 13 May 1977) is an English actress and director. Known for her work in independent cinema, she is the recipient of numerous accolades, including a BAFTA Award and a Golden Globe Award, as well as nominations for two ...
as Annie Lee,
Timothy Spall Timothy Leonard Spall (born 27 February 1957) is an English actor and presenter. He became a household name in the UK after appearing as Barry Spencer Taylor in the 1983 ITV comedy-drama series '' Auf Wiedersehen, Pet''. Spall performed in '' ...
as the voice of Laurie Lee, and
Annette Crosbie Annette Crosbie (born 12 February 1934) is a Scottish actor.Annette Crosbie fil ...
in the cast, which aired on 27 September 2015.


Sources

* ''Cider with Rosie'', Laurie Lee, Penguin Books, 1959, * ''Cider with Rosie'', Laurie Lee, The Hogarth Press, 1959 * ''Cider with Rosie'', Laurie Lee, David R. Godine, Publisher, 2008,


Allusions

A racehorse was registered with the name ''Cider with Rosie'' in 1968 and won some races in the 1970s, including the
Cesarewitch The Cesarewitch Handicap is a flat handicap horse race in Great Britain open to horses aged three years or older. It is run at Newmarket over a distance of 2 miles and 2 furlongs (3,621 metres ...
of 1972.''Country Life'', Volume 152 (1972), p. 941


References


External links

* * * {{authority control 1959 books British autobiographical novels English non-fiction books Novels by Laurie Lee Stroud District Novels set in Gloucestershire Hogarth Press books