On the Trail of Flora Thompson

by John Owen Smith

The author has turned detective. In this book, he discovers the true identities behind the pseudonyms which Flora Thompson employed within her writing to hide the identity of the people and places she encountered ‘beyond Candleford Green.’Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and George Bernard Shaw were two among many eminent people who were regular customers in her post office at Grayshott—unaware that the shy young lady sending their telegrams would one day rank alongside themselves on literary shelves.But the lesser-known characters also lend their own interest to the story. Who was ‘Mr Foreshaw,’ the retired big-game hunter with whom she had tea on Sunday afternoons? And ‘Richard Brownlow,’ the young man who met her often, then told her he ‘could never marry her’? And ‘Bob Pikesley’ who taught her how to keep dry in a rainstorm? And the bright-eyed ‘Alma Stedman’ who kept Flora from ‘brooding’?And who was the unfortunate ‘Mr Hertford,’ her employer at Grayshott, who eventually stabbed his wife to death shortly after Flora left the village?These and other riddles are answered. There is also a ‘lost’ chapter of Flora’s own work published here for the first time, and the opportunity to follow literally in Flora’s footsteps by taking the suggested ‘trails’ through the Hampshire countryside she came to love so well.

148 pages, Paperback

First published October 3, 1997