THE LITTLE GREY MEN

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D. J. Watkins-Pitchford at Library of Congress, with 42 library catalogue records (includes work published as by BB or B.B.) Marcus Crouch, Treasure Seekers and Borrowers: Children's Books in Britain 1900–1960, The Library Association, 1962, p. 92.

As BB says in his introduction to The Little Grey Men, most fairy books portray miniature men and women with ridiculous tinsel wings, doing impossible things with flowers and cobwebs. He may have been referring to Cecily Mary Barker’s Flower Fairies, first published in 1927. As he rightly adds, ‘That sort of make-believe is all right for some people, but it won’t do for you and me.’ His gnomes are never sentimental or twee. They are just a short imaginative step from the woodland creatures that are their friends. In his memoir The Idle Countryman, published in 1943, a year after The Little Grey Men, BB stresses his love of wandering alone in the wild, especially at dusk, and the mix of enchantment and fear it can generate. Denys James Watkins-Pitchford MBE (25 July 1905 – 8 September 1990) was a British naturalist, an illustrator, art teacher and a children's author under the pseudonym "BB". He won the 1942 Carnegie Medal for British children's books. [1] Early life [ edit ] The three gnome characters of The Little Grey Men have lived for, as far as we know, a couple of thousand years in pretty much the same spot on a stream they call Folly Brook. However, civilization is crowding in on them, and they are not sure whether any others of their kind remain in Britain. When their brother--a fourth gnome, named Cloudberry--has been absent for a year on a lone adventure up the Folly, the other three decide, after much debate, to go looking for him.The housekeeper told us that the previous summer BB’s wife Cecily, his emotional mainstay, had died prematurely after being enveloped in pesticides sprayed by the neighbouring farmer. He himself died sixteen years later, in 1990, flying away like his wild goose weather-vane just before my first child was born. The Little Grey Men is charming and old-fashioned (with all that implies), a mini-adventure for us but a hardy expedition for the gnomes that undertake the journey. Will they achieve their goal or will it all end in disaster, not least from the prying eyes of Giants? This quote, so apt for his works, has sometimes been thought to have been another one of 'BB'’s creations but it was in fact copied from a tombstone in a north-country churchyard by his father. [ citation needed] Adaptations of his works [ edit ]

Sneezewort is the youngest, most sensitive gnome who follows the lead of his older brothers and is usually assigned the less interesting tasks such as cooking and cleaning.First published in 1942 this glorious read won the Carnegie Medal for the most outstanding children’s book of that year and has been reissued several times ; it’s latest incarnation is this kindle version, which will hopefully find it a whole new audience. BB was the pen name of Denys Watkins-Pitchford and he later wrote a sequel called, “Down the Bright Stream,” which has also been published on kindle. Denys Watkins-Pitchford had a great love of the countryside and this is reflected in his writing, which describes a realistic portrayal of nature. Although not idealised, it is wonderfully descriptive and he does not shy away from the fact that his central characters live off the countryside. They wear clothes made from mouse or bat skin, they fish and gather fruit and nuts to eat. Sometimes, times are hard and sometimes bountiful, but there it is a place of both beauty and danger. Not to mention the writing style-- so old and rich, I really wish we still spoke like that, ngl. I actually could only read bits at a time to soak it all in. And that one day I read a chapter during the rainstorm with tea?? 😭😭😭 BRING ME TO THAT FICTIONAL LAND. When studying The Lindisfarne Gospels recently, in the British Library, I noticed that they were full of eagles. Those eagles are surely not merely theological symbols, but reflections of the wild world in which the scribes lived and prayed — the beauty of the craftsmanship proclaiming the glory of God in creation. BB WAS reluctant to tell of his inmost thoughts, but we do know that he was influenced by an earlier generation of writers on the outdoors — including Henry David Thoreau and Richard Jefferies, but, above all, W. H. Hudson — all of whom had mystical tendencies.

Still, I shouldn’t be too surprised to find this this kind of content in early-20th century nature writing. You can see it in the works of other favourites. In ‘H is for Hawk’, for example, Helen Macdonald points out the fascistic ideology in beloved classics like ‘Tarka the Otter’. My favourite example is Melissa Harrison’s treatment of anti-Semitism and nativism in the English countryside in the run up to the Great War, in her truly incredible book ‘All Among the Barley’ (read it, read it now). That absorption in the countryside is what makes these books so captivating. BB’s attention to detail – to subtle changes in weather, the migration of swifts or the scent of willow buds – reminds us to notice such things again; things which once seemed magical but which in adulthood have become humdrum or ignored. He prefaced Down the Bright Stream with a text copied by his clergyman father from a Cumbrian gravestone, which sums up his wide-awakeness: Oh yeah, storyline: after living on the side of Folly Brook for several thousand years, three gnomes decide to venture upstream to find their lost brother Cloudberry, and what happened to them on the way. Roger Scruton has rightly observed that many of the writers, here and in the United States, who shaped the modern environmental movement had a concern with “the sacred”. In a rejection of the metrics of the Enlightenment, they were, he wrote in Green Philosophy, “painters who made hymns in word and pigment”. They were people who knew and loved specific places — as BB knew and loved his corner of Northamptonshire — and yearned to preserve them.The Little Grey Men established (Denys Watkins-Pitchford, A.K.A. ‘B.B.’) at the forefront of children’s literature. Its stature was recognised by the award of the Carnegie Medal in 1942 and it is the very best and the most well known of all his children’s books. It was probably inspired by his own childhood sighting of one of the little people in his bedroom. As ever, the book is full of BB’s superb scraperboard and colour illustrations. The exciting adventure captures the imagination using detailed descriptions of English fields, streams, and woodland which beguile the reader into thinking that under the root of any tree in the dappled shade beside a running brook there might well be a whole other world. Crazy Diamond: Syd Barrett & the Dawn of Pink Floyd". Archived from the original on 8 January 2008. The Little Grey Men established (Denys Watkins-Pitchford, A.K.A. ‘B.B.’) at the forefront of children’s literature.”—CILIP Carnegie & Kate Greenaway Children’s Book Awards The plot, involving three gnomes who set off upstream in search of a fourth who went a-questing two years earlier, is thoroughly wrapped in rhapsodic descriptions of bird song and nodding wildflowers, bubbling waters, breezes and storms, grassy pastures, the pleasures of angling, and nature observed from ground level. . . . [F]ans of Wind in the Willows will feel right at home. . . . The story winds down to a happy twist at the end. Given patient listeners, this Carnegie Medal–winner makes a leisurely but finally engaging read-aloud.”— Kirkus