Walter Murray was a young man tired of living in the city. Early in the 1920s,he persuaded a Sussex farmer to rent him a derelict cottage,which stood alone on a hill,with no running water or electricity. Most of the windows were broken,it was dirty,dark and ran with rats.He bought a brush and pail in the village,forced the rats to retreat,brought in rudimentary furniture. The local postman found him a dog,and with his new companion he began to explore his surroundings. In that year at Copsford he made a living from collecting,drying and selling the herbs he found locally: agrimony,meadow-sweet andyarrow. He became alert to the wildlife and plants around him. His life was hard - he supplemented his income with occasional journalism,but it was here he met his future wife,who he calls The Music Mistress,and with whom he would later found a school. Copsford is an extraordinary book. Bearing comparison to Thoreau's Walden,Murray's intense feeling for his place is evident on every page. It is,though,no simple story of a rural idyll - life at Copsford was hard,and Murray does not shy away from the occasional terrors of a house that had its hauntings.A publishing success when first published in the late 1940s,this new edition has an introduction by Raynor Winn,author of The Salt Path.
Publisher: Little Toller BooksISBN: 9781908213709Dimensions: 216 x 156 mm
Walter J. C. Murray
Visit the Walter J. C. Murray author pageRaynor Winn
Raynor Winn is a British writer and long-distance walker. She is the author of the bestselling former Waterstones Non-fiction Book of the Month,The Salt Path.
Visit the Raynor Winn author page
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