A diary of farming life written by Sir Michael Morpurgo is being republished more than four decades after its initial release to celebrate the award-winning author’s 80th birthday. Originally published in 1979, All Around the Year is centred on Parsonage Farm in the Devon village of Iddelseigh, where life was remote and had remained unchanged for centuries.
The book reveals the daily hardships and rewards of such a life, and includes poems by the late Ted Hughes, Sir Michael’s friend and neighbour, inspired by events on Hughes’ own farm.
Alongside Sir Michael’s diary and Hughes’ poetry, the book is illustrated with beautiful photographs taken by James Ravilious, the son of artist Eric Ravilious who spent most of his life documenting rural life in Devon and worked closely with Sir Michael to create the first edition.
With the support of Beaford Archive, the Ted Hughes Estate and the Ravilious family, a new edition will be published by Beaminster-based Little Toller Books to mark Sir Michael’s 80th birthday in October and to celebrate a remarkable artistic collaboration between Morpurgo, Hughes and Ravilious.
Sir Michael, who served as Children’s Laureate from 2003 to 2005, said: “I love this book for so many reasons, because of so many people: because of Ted Hughes’s poems, because of the photographs of James Ravilious, because it’s about the place where [my wife] Clare and I live, where our family grew up, and which helped me grow my stories, War Horse, Private Peaceful and many others, and because it’s a living story still being told everyday.”
All Around the Year also includes a fresh introduction by the prize-winning author Katherine Rundell, who added: “The book does not make farming look or sound easy, but it does make it look and sound profoundly worth doing: a form of stewardship and a form of cherishing, within the practical endeavour of producing food and rearing livestock.”
Proceeds from the sale of books will be donated to Farms For City Children, the charity founded by Sir Michael and his wife Clare which gives children from disadvantaged communities an opportunity to live and work on a farm for a week, in the heart of the countryside. Since its establishment in 1976, Farms For City Children has grown dramatically to welcome more than 100,000 children to the three farms it now runs, Nethercott House in Iddesleigh, Lower Treginnis in Pembrokeshire and Wick Court in Gloucestershire.
All Around the Year will be available in paperback, priced at £16. For further details and to order a copy, visit www.littletoller.co.uk.
