Just so as you know, I sent a little message via the CBTR website about the reissue of Adrian Bell’s v. lovely Men and The Fields, via the Dovecote Press. As I’m sure you know, A.M. Bell ( Martin Bell’s dad) was the bloke who pretty much invented the cryptic crossword and M&TF was, along with the autobiographical Corduroy, much prized by tommies away from home due to his authorial ability to evoke the magic of the British countryside. A peripatetic picaresque, complete with beautiful John Nash illustrations, M&TF chronicles Bell’s travels through East Anglia in the late ’30s and can now be seen as a snapshot of a corner of Britain yet to succumb to the evils of industrial agriculture. It’s been reissued along with Gavin Maxwell’s Ring Of Bright Water and Edward Thomas’ rather strange The South Country.

Anyway, here’s the link.