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This is the long story of Sally Ann from a fourteen-year-old child-woman who met an older man at a village dance, through to motherhood while the Battle of Britain raged overhead. Her father, old Mr Sutton, a gentle kindly man, telling his wry humorous tales from an earlier age when his father seemed to employ the entire village. Solemn young Sidney who managed his life to the last farthing, farms in partnership with his shy, sensitive older brother who suffered a catastrophic personal loss; only saved by a supportive auctioneer who provided a lifeline of man-to-man friendship. This is also …

At the opening of this story, a group of farmers market traders a clothier have all survived the Peasant’s Revolt, yet still feel threatened by the young king’s revenge. A poor widow lost her husband and son in the violence, a farmer’s son from White Clyffe swept up in the excitement was arrested in Salisbury at the height of the rebellion and has not been seen since, a clothier abandoned his established business near Bridgewater fearing suspicion of involvement, conspiracy. Their lives, loves and fears are explored among the villages and towns of the West of England.  The story moves …

John a skinny boy we first met in an English churchyard planting primroses on his brother’s grave, becomes a central figure to this story. He survived against odds to raise a large family yet emerges as a complex character. The birth of a calf is a thrill for the whole family that owes nothing to financial security or base ambition or fear of starvation; it is a new life, an elementary joy. Even the most ancient, gnarled, grizzled farmer will stroke the calf as tenderly as a new mother, and John was no exception. He returned to check the cow …