Nettles and Cream
What an extraordinary story John Calver`s is! He pitches us into the past, to a village on the edge of England called Wrabness, and a distant, unplumbed, candlelit world populated by farmers, coal hauliers, smiths and a strange collection of siblings. One of them, Uncle Bernard, is described unforgettably in these terms: `In the old shack at Foxes Farm, he could have been a man from the Stone Age getting weapons ready for the hunt.` Marriage and post-war prosperity take John into a new land - the Essex and Suffolk we know today, with its painted beamy houses and neat towns busy with antique shops. From being a coal merchant, John becomes a craftsman, lovingly restoring old furniture, and we briefly meet the archforger, Tom Keating....
