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The Green Lane to Nowhere: The Life of an English Village
Byron Rogers moved to Blakesley, in Northamptonshire, long before fleeing the city for the country became everyone’s dream. Over the years, his “Village Voice” column in London’s Daily Telegraph observed his village’s gradual evolution from a place where people lived from cradle to grave, into a dormitory haven for car-borne commuters. Now, in The Green Lane to Nowhere, his touching, frequently hilarious chronicle can be enjoyed by a wider audience. Here is the Methodist chapel that became an auto showroom, the summer gala where the author bought his neighbor’s shirts, his elevation to heady civic responsibility as Warden of the Paths, and the pathos of the village’s oldest resident finally having to quit her ancestral home. It is an enchanting book that will appeal to anyone who has ever dreamed of leaving the metropolis behind. Byron Rogers is the author of An Audience with an Elephant.
272 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2002
17 people want to read
About the author
Byron Rogers
18 books3 followersByron Rogers is a Welsh journalist, essayist and biographer. In August, 2007 the University of Edinburgh awarded him the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for the best biography published in the previous year, for The Man Who Went Into the West: The Life of RS Thomas. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, said of the book: "Byron Rogers's lively and affectionate biography is unexpectedly, even riotously, funny."
Born and raised in Carmarthen, he now lives in Northamptonshire. He has written for Sunday Telegraph and The Guardian, and was once speech writer for the Prince of Wales. It has been written of his essays that he is "a historian of the quirky and forgotten, of people and places other journalists don't even know exist or ignore if they do".
Born and raised in Carmarthen, he now lives in Northamptonshire. He has written for Sunday Telegraph and The Guardian, and was once speech writer for the Prince of Wales. It has been written of his essays that he is "a historian of the quirky and forgotten, of people and places other journalists don't even know exist or ignore if they do".
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 12, 2017
A bittersweet selection of articles written by Rogers about his home village in Northamptonshire.
I enjoyed his style of writing - just on the right side of curmudgeonly, honest and with a wry humour.
He doesn't glamorise the rural life and often mourns the past - even though he knows that in many ways the old style of doing things was not good, unless you were the Squire of course.
However, despite the articles only being written in the 1980s and 1990s the book felt incredibly dated. I guess he is writing before the internet really started to affect people's lives, working or otherwise.
An example is that Rogers bemoans the fact that he is practically the only working man in the village during the week as all the other men have left for the nearest towns in their 'executive cars'. Nowadays no doubt many would be working from home.
You could easily end up feeling a bit nostalgic for both the past that Rogers talks about AND the village he describes in the 80s and 90s as both have gone!
I enjoyed his style of writing - just on the right side of curmudgeonly, honest and with a wry humour.
He doesn't glamorise the rural life and often mourns the past - even though he knows that in many ways the old style of doing things was not good, unless you were the Squire of course.
However, despite the articles only being written in the 1980s and 1990s the book felt incredibly dated. I guess he is writing before the internet really started to affect people's lives, working or otherwise.
An example is that Rogers bemoans the fact that he is practically the only working man in the village during the week as all the other men have left for the nearest towns in their 'executive cars'. Nowadays no doubt many would be working from home.
You could easily end up feeling a bit nostalgic for both the past that Rogers talks about AND the village he describes in the 80s and 90s as both have gone!
May 18, 2022
Not my kind if book was brought it as a gift
January 10, 2012
One of the best books I read in 2011. So good I blogged about it - http://animumadvertere.blogspot.com/2...
May 8, 2015
Who knew one small village could hold so much history?
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews