Rural: The Lives of the Working Class Countryside

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Work in the countryside ties you, soul and salary, to the land, but often those who labour in nature have the least control over what happens there. Starting with Rebecca Smith's own family history - foresters in Cumbria, miners in Derbyshire, millworkers in Nottinghamshire, builders of reservoirs and the Manchester Ship Canal - Rural is an exploration of our green and pleasant land, and the people whose labour has shaped it. An educational and moving read that I believe no matter where you fit in society, you can enjoy … Smith beautifully stitches together the beauty, tragedy and comedy that underpins rural communities today making her book a fascinating history lesson’The Scotsman -

The politics of land ownership and rural economics are complex and Smith deserves credit for grappling with some of this territory within an accessible and thought-provoking narrative. There’s much to enjoy in Rural’The Herald - Starting with Rebecca Smith's own family history - foresters in Cumbria, miners in Derbyshire, millworkers in Nottinghamshire, builders of reservoirs and the Manchester Ship Canal - Rural is an exploration of our green and pleasant land, and the people whose labour has shaped it. The new equilibrium will be the new aristocracy. In days of old the elite lived on vast country estates surrounded by parkland, walls and gates, as far as possible from the public highway with live-in servants. Millionaires like Guy Ritchie live like this today.It's heart warming and hopeful to hear about the community land ownership projects in Assynt and Eigg and let's hope it becomes more prolific across the country. The publisher’s blurb describes this as “ a book for anyone who loves and longs for the countryside, whose family owes something to a bygone trade, or who is interested in the future of rural Britain.” Many of us love the countryside but with 82.9% of England’s population, 83% of Scotland and around 80% of Wales (2019) living in urban areas, Britons may seem more detached than ever from rural life. Those of us with UK ancestors are likely to have at least some forebears living in the countryside in the first half of the 19th century, if not later. And with debates about fuel and food dominating recent headlines, awareness of our rural economies, communities and environment urgently needs to improve.

As Smith states, ‘we need preservation and progress, environment and economy, locals and incomers.’ Rural tenderly reveals the precarious lives that underpin the beauty and the wealth of our countryside. Essential reading for lovers of the land and its people’Katherine May, author of Wintering - So why not live in a well-heeled quiet crime free village with none of those annoying ‘activities’ for local people? With fast Internet access and regular deliveries they won’t need any ordinary people to man local shops and services and they will be wealthy enough to happily pay extra for a plumber or car mechanic to come from the nearest town.

Rebecca Smith Press Reviews

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She is also clearly full of respect and admiration, as well as love, for her brother, Tom, who manages an area of forestry that he has bought. Living off selling firewood and carvings seems precarious but Tom achieves this and so provides his sister with excellent material as well as a location for recuperation and celebration. Rebecca grew up in tied cottages on country estates — homes that come with a job, where you are tied, body, soul and salary, to your landlord. Her father was a forester and one of their homes, on the Graythwaite Estate in Cumbria, was a single-storey lodge with a turret. It was rumoured to have had the first floor removed, like the top from a Victoria sponge, as it spoilt the view of a previous incumbent of The Big House. Rural tenderly reveals the precarious lives that underpin the beauty and the wealth of our countryside. Essential reading for lovers of the land and its people'It could be a picture of my three (now grown) children. It stirred a deep well of familiar, complex, yearning and contradictory feelings.

Revelatory’ THE SCOTSMAN ‘Eye-opening and persuasive’ SUNDAY TIMES ‘Brilliant … I loved it’ KIT DE WAAL ‘Thoughtful, moving, honest’ CAL FLYN Work in the countryside ties you, soul and salary, to the land. But often those who labour in nature have the least control over what happens there.

A wonderful debut that has made me rethink the history and geography of our countryside. Highly recommended' Why are the lives of rural working people so marginalised in mainstream culture? Smith points out British literature’s fascination with the ‘Big House’. Think of Austen’s Pemberley, du Maurier’s Manderley and Waugh’s Brideshead. For Smith, the grand pile “represented a space that was not for me” with a “repelling forcefield around it”. Meanwhile, working class experiences are often viewed as simplistically urban. Barry Hines, author of A Kestrel for a Knave (1968), noted his readers’ surprise at his young hawk-trainer protagonist’s access to nature in his South Yorkshire mining town: “Many people still have a vision of the north filled with ‘dark satanic mills’ […] and not a blade of grass in sight […] In the village where I lived, the miners walked to work across the meadows, with sky larks singing overhead”. A wonderful book, beautifully conceived … So immediate and clearly seen, so gracefully and gently written … It is such a valuable thing’Adam Nicolson, author of Life Between the Tides - We lived four miles from the closest village, which meant four winding miles to the nearest shop and, of course, the school.’ Rebecca Smith’s brother with her mother. Photograph: Rebecca Smith