As I walked out one Midsummer Morning - Laurie Lee

I love it! A tale of a young man on the road, busking with his violin in England and Spain. The date 1933. So even if Laurie was playing for pennies down the road at the local shops he would be giving me something new. Past times.

He's good. Here's Laurie on backstreet Southampton.

'The streets near the water appeared to be jammed with shops designed more for pleasure than for profit, including tattooists, ear-piecers, bump-readers, fortunetellers, whelk-bars and pudding oilers. There were also shops selling kites and Chinese paperdragons, coloured sands and tropical birds; and lots of little stepdown taverns panelled with rum soaked timbers and reeking of pickled eggs and onions.'

I hesitated before following him across the water to Spain because I don't know Spain. Again he's clearsighted, gives us what's there, engages us. Laurie showed me why Spain was on the brink of civil war. Beneath the songs and banners Spain is a broken down wreck. Peasants and townspeople are starving in rags under the yoke of a few rich landowners. The ancient Church whirligig of saints day festivals and sin and repentance and fatalistic acceptance is juddering. The cracks in the castles and the parched earth are filling with the desperate hunger and thirst for justice.

Laurie wrote this in 1969. I feel that there is a knowingness at the back of his countryboy innocence, his openhearted come-what-may acceptance of drinking pals and women young and old, his work and play. It was always there. He was a lucky man.