Charm of Essex

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23489, 28 October 1939, Page 4 (Supplement)

Charm of Essex

By N.M.

A CHARMING collection of short prose sketches comes to us from the pen of Mr. Richard Church, wellknown English poet and novelist. In " Calling For a Spado " Mr, Church transports his readers into an enchanted world pervaded by the beauty and simplicity of the countryside. We visit the author and his "companion" in their country home, a fifteenthcentury house in Essex; we share their wanderings in quiet lanes, their hours of work and leisure in the garden, and wo meet tho quaint, bucolic characters who emanate from tho surrounding villages. And human beings aro not the only figures on Mr. Church's canvas for there is the weo mouse who creeps into the house one night to disturb the family sleep b}' crunching a biscuit on the bedroom floor and there are the fussy, talkative neighbours who are really a pair of birds making their nest in the thatch on the roof. The essays radiate an atmosphere of tranquillity that is disturbed only in the last few pages when a cloud from Europe casts its menacing shadow over the peaceful security of the village. But even then the air of serenity and calm remains unbroken and as wo leave tho author in his "second Eden" we nre curious to learn more of this now home in the Thomas Hardy country. There is a delicacj* about Mr. Church's' writing that is fascinating and the intimate way in which ho shares his deep love of the quiet countryside cannot fail to capture his readers. The numerous sketches by Joan Haesell are delightfully personal and lend artistic charm to tho collection. " Calling For a Spndo," by Richard Church. (Dont.)