A 450 year old tradition

As I start work researching my next book, in which I will tell the stories of people who work with soil, I realise that I am simply the latest in a long line of Suffolk rural writers.

It reading was George Ewart Evans more than 50 years ago that put me on this path, and since I have read books by H Rider Haggard, H W Freeman, Adrian Bell and of course Ronald Blythe.

But the earliest writer I have found is Thomas Tusser, who farmed near Brantham on the banks of the Rover Stour. His 100 Good Points of Husbandry was first published in 1557, so I’m simply continuing a 450 year tradition of writing about life on the land here in Suffolk.

Will future writers include me in their list of Suffolk writers I wonder?