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A Plank Bridge by a Pool
From the front-inside dustjacket:
“This is a portrait, in words and pictures, of a garden in rural England that has become a wildlife sanctuary. It is also the story of how one man realised a boyhood dream. …
Norman Thelwell was brought up in Birkemhead, in England’s industrial north-west. One of his greatest childhood pleasures was to be taken for an outing in a rowing boat on a nearby lake. Ever since then he has been in love with boats and water. Some thirty years later he began to realise his dream – to have a stretch of open water beside his own house, where he might paint, fish, row and above all watch – watch the changing light and seasons and the wildlife of rural Hampshire …
Thelwell’s book will appeal equally to lovers of wildlife and amateur landscape gardeners – to fishermen and those who like ‘messing about in boats’. His record, in word and line, of the beauties, curiosities and occasional cruelties of nature, prove him to be one of those rare observers who make us feel we have gazed over their shoulders for a moment and seen what they saw. …”
“This is a portrait, in words and pictures, of a garden in rural England that has become a wildlife sanctuary. It is also the story of how one man realised a boyhood dream. …
Norman Thelwell was brought up in Birkemhead, in England’s industrial north-west. One of his greatest childhood pleasures was to be taken for an outing in a rowing boat on a nearby lake. Ever since then he has been in love with boats and water. Some thirty years later he began to realise his dream – to have a stretch of open water beside his own house, where he might paint, fish, row and above all watch – watch the changing light and seasons and the wildlife of rural Hampshire …
Thelwell’s book will appeal equally to lovers of wildlife and amateur landscape gardeners – to fishermen and those who like ‘messing about in boats’. His record, in word and line, of the beauties, curiosities and occasional cruelties of nature, prove him to be one of those rare observers who make us feel we have gazed over their shoulders for a moment and seen what they saw. …”
- GenresBiographyNonfiction
160 pages, Hardcover
First published September 17, 1978
About the author
Norman Thelwell
99 books20 followersNorman Thelwell was an English cartoonist well-known for his humorous illustrations of ponies and horses. A promising young student from Liverpool College of Art, he soon became a contributor to the satirical magazine Punch in the 1950s, and earned many lasting devotees by illustrating Chicko in the British boys' comic Eagle.
Known to many only as Thelwell, he found his true comic niche with Pony Club girls and ponies refusing fences, a subject for which he became best-known. His cartoons and drawings delighted millions.
For the last quarter of a century of his life he lived in the Test Valley at Timsbury, near Romsey, gradually restoring a farm house and landscaping the grounds which gave rise to his first factual book, A Plank Bridge by a Pool, which detailed the first two lakes he dug there. A third lake was later featured on the BBC’s South Today programme. Written much earlier, but published three years later, A Millstone Round My Neck described his experiences in re-building a Cornish water mill (Addicroft Mill at Liskeard, which he called Penruin), that was sold before the book was published. He always loved old buildings, and in his auto-biography, Wrestling with a Pencil wrote about his joy in the beauty of old cottages.
Known to many only as Thelwell, he found his true comic niche with Pony Club girls and ponies refusing fences, a subject for which he became best-known. His cartoons and drawings delighted millions.
For the last quarter of a century of his life he lived in the Test Valley at Timsbury, near Romsey, gradually restoring a farm house and landscaping the grounds which gave rise to his first factual book, A Plank Bridge by a Pool, which detailed the first two lakes he dug there. A third lake was later featured on the BBC’s South Today programme. Written much earlier, but published three years later, A Millstone Round My Neck described his experiences in re-building a Cornish water mill (Addicroft Mill at Liskeard, which he called Penruin), that was sold before the book was published. He always loved old buildings, and in his auto-biography, Wrestling with a Pencil wrote about his joy in the beauty of old cottages.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 20, 2015
I had not intended to begin this review by referring to another of Norman Thelwell’s books; but I feel it worth noting that plank bridges feature not only for real in the autobiographical “A Plank Bridge By A Pool” (1978) but also within the cartoons in, “Compleat Tangler” (1967). Each book, in its own way, nods affectionately to that famous fisherman Izaak Walton; who died and was buried in Winchester cathedral, in 1683.
Thelwell writes enchantingly not only of one of the very loveliest parts of Hampshire: the famed chalk streams begotten of the River Test, dreamt of by fishermen the world over, yet ignored by almost all tourists. He also champions the side of male comradeship. Practically every constituent project of his great vision to mould and shape his land is first mapped out by pencil on beer mats by him and his three mates in the pub of a Friday evening. Almost a Southern “Last of the Summer Wine” (BBC) perhaps; yet different too, in that these practical men, Bob, Bill, Douglas, and of course Norman, strongly bound together in friendship, are practical men of action and achievement. That doesn’t prevent Thelwell affectionately observing, “Bob is not a car lover and his vehicle had a lived-in kind of look, but the white stripe was kept fresh by the pied wagtail that created it.” (p.49).
Not only are humpback bridges common within both books; but also, (one example), the wickedly observed and very funny episode of the unnamed General in hot pursuit of his fish (CT, pp.124-125), and (APBBAP, pp.132-135): “I was almost trampled as he rushed by, wide-eyed with terror…”. The extra dimension added by reading these two books open side by side is well worth it. Interesting also, to realise that the great project to excavate the ground with the aim of creating a lake, began at Christmas 1967 (APBBAP, p.22), the same year that “Compleat Tangler” was first published.
There is something intoxicatingly addictive about Thelwell’s lyrical writing, whether he is putting his heart into writing about the labour of time and love to visualise and make real his plans for lake and islands; or when in knowledgeable naturalist mode, woven with an affectionately addictive dry humour, he casts line and eye to observe and record the quirks and foibles of the wildlife, both furred and feathered, which choose to make, or endeavour to make, their homes alongside his. Town life barely gets a look in, other than mention of the soft, distant sound of the bells of Romsey Abbey [see (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiVRpc... where in the ringing chamber the eight bells are called into the changes of Cambridge Surprise Major (at the 1.22 min. point)].
This positively therapeutic book is peppered throughout with very many exquisitely drawn black and white illustrations by the great man himself, of wildlife and habitats; and before and after endpaper sketch maps of the transformation of his house, “Heron’s Mead”; on its land. The chapter headings are amongst the most discrete I have observed in any book; pitch perfect in the manner by which they support the nature and flow of the text; marking place and time, and smoothing the bubbling and gurgling flow of narrative.
Highly recommended.
Thelwell writes enchantingly not only of one of the very loveliest parts of Hampshire: the famed chalk streams begotten of the River Test, dreamt of by fishermen the world over, yet ignored by almost all tourists. He also champions the side of male comradeship. Practically every constituent project of his great vision to mould and shape his land is first mapped out by pencil on beer mats by him and his three mates in the pub of a Friday evening. Almost a Southern “Last of the Summer Wine” (BBC) perhaps; yet different too, in that these practical men, Bob, Bill, Douglas, and of course Norman, strongly bound together in friendship, are practical men of action and achievement. That doesn’t prevent Thelwell affectionately observing, “Bob is not a car lover and his vehicle had a lived-in kind of look, but the white stripe was kept fresh by the pied wagtail that created it.” (p.49).
Not only are humpback bridges common within both books; but also, (one example), the wickedly observed and very funny episode of the unnamed General in hot pursuit of his fish (CT, pp.124-125), and (APBBAP, pp.132-135): “I was almost trampled as he rushed by, wide-eyed with terror…”. The extra dimension added by reading these two books open side by side is well worth it. Interesting also, to realise that the great project to excavate the ground with the aim of creating a lake, began at Christmas 1967 (APBBAP, p.22), the same year that “Compleat Tangler” was first published.
There is something intoxicatingly addictive about Thelwell’s lyrical writing, whether he is putting his heart into writing about the labour of time and love to visualise and make real his plans for lake and islands; or when in knowledgeable naturalist mode, woven with an affectionately addictive dry humour, he casts line and eye to observe and record the quirks and foibles of the wildlife, both furred and feathered, which choose to make, or endeavour to make, their homes alongside his. Town life barely gets a look in, other than mention of the soft, distant sound of the bells of Romsey Abbey [see (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiVRpc... where in the ringing chamber the eight bells are called into the changes of Cambridge Surprise Major (at the 1.22 min. point)].
This positively therapeutic book is peppered throughout with very many exquisitely drawn black and white illustrations by the great man himself, of wildlife and habitats; and before and after endpaper sketch maps of the transformation of his house, “Heron’s Mead”; on its land. The chapter headings are amongst the most discrete I have observed in any book; pitch perfect in the manner by which they support the nature and flow of the text; marking place and time, and smoothing the bubbling and gurgling flow of narrative.
Highly recommended.
April 28, 2019
Essentially this book is a description of how Thelwell created and adapted a lake in the bottom of his garden and the wildlife it attracted but it is also really a tribute to his love of nature and in particular the riverside environment. Some parts are anecdotal, where his humour comes through, others poetical. His detailed and beautiful illustrations alone are worth getting the book for, depicting the waterside wildlife and Hampshire chalk stream scenery. A gentle, quiet read, that can be dipped into, for those who love nature.
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January 18, 2022Beautiful written with delightful illustrations
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews