Voices of Akenfield is one of a few Penguin English Journey books I bought in a charity shop. I bought them because they looked so well designed and because they promised to give me tastes of authors or stories that I might not otherwise read.
Here Blythe has collected life stories from either elderly residents of Akenfield or those who are working in traditional roles like a blacksmith working in a forge that was his grandfather's. The overwhelming sense is one of hardship. The idea that people were 'worked to death' recurs, one interviewee describes seeing elders of the village bent, worn and wrinkled and realises now they were only around 50 years old. This should be required reading to counteract nostalgia for the good old, simple days.
