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Friday 5 June 2020

APROPOS OF NOTHING #49 - 5 JUNE 1935 - LAURIE LEE WALKED OUT ONE MIDSUMMER MORNING

Available for freelance writing commissions on a variety of subjects including family history, nostalgic Belfast and its famous people, shops, shoppers & shopping (40 years in retailing), the golden age of Hollywood (including westerns) and humorous pieces on life's weird and wonderful. Op-eds, columns, non-fiction book reviews too. 

joecushnan@aol.com & @JoeCushnan

I have a portfolio of features, reviews, poetry and short fiction published in all sorts of places - Belfast Telegraph, Tribune, Ireland's Own, Dalhousie Review, Fairlight Books, Reader's Digest, Reality, Lapwing Poetry, Ink, Sweat & Tears, Spillwords, Dear Reader, Amethyst Review, to name a selection.  Oh, and the odd BBC radio contribution. 


This is a series of very short items that have nothing to do with the current news agenda.  Swift diversions for a moment or two.

Apropos of Nothing #49 – 5 June 1935

On the morning of 5 June, 1935, Laurie Lee left his home in Gloucestershire to discover the world, travelling on foot and earning money through odd jobs and by playing the violin.  At one stage, he walked through Spain on the eve of its civil war.  Here's his memory of the morning he left home.

“It was a bright Sunday morning in early June, the right time to be leaving home.  My three sisters and a brother had already gone before me; two other brothers had yet to make up their minds.  They were still sleeping that morning, but my mother had got up early and cooked me a heavy breakfast, had stood wordlessly while I ate it, her hand on my chair, and had then helped me to pack up my few belongings.  There had been no fuss, no appeals, no attempts at advice or persuasion, only a long and searching look.  Then, with my bags on my back, I’d gone out into the early sunshine and climbed through the long wet grass to the road.”

 

  
Source: As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning


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