By October 1916 Phillip Maddison is hardened by life in the trenches. As he makes his way to a transport course, he prays that his gammy leg will not prevent his return to the Front - the only way he feels he can assuage his grief for Lily, who has been killed by a Zeppelin. Back in France, he is...
World War II finds Phillip and his family struggling to maintain the farm. Phillip's relationship with his eldest son, Billy, suffers from his heavy reliance on the young man. Resentment pushes Billy to join the RAF and a knowledge of the dangers involved adds to Phillip's guilt over his behaviour.
I didn't get through the whole of the chronicles of ancient sunlight which i think is the complete set but i got through the first 3 or 4. These are all brilliant. the history of henry W is incidental to what he did with these books. They rank up there with graves goodbye to all that as a descrip...
Phillip and Barley have been married for some time and Phillip is happy, despite an obsession with the wartime novel he is writing. When Barley dies in childbirth, Phillip returns to the battlefields, wondering if it will ever truly be over. Then he meets Lucy, who offers comfort and understanding.
After the harsh winter of 1917, everyone is almost at the end of their endurance. Hetty, temporarily relieved with Phillip safely home, hopes desperately that her son will not be posted to France again. Phillip, however, determined to go back, adds his name to a list of those available for service.
Phillip is full of trepidation when he begins work at the Moon Fire Office, his father's employer. He escapes to the countryside as often as he can, finding there the peace he craves. Then war is declared on Germany and Phillip is called up. It is not long before "home is another world".
It is 1926 and Phillip and Lucy are living at Skirr Farm, only too aware of the difficulties of industrial unrest and the agricultural depression. When Phillip manages to steal some time for writing, he finds himself again at the battlegrounds of the war. Will he ever be able to put it behind him?
Phillip and Lucy have been married for some years, but Phillip is restless, seeking the pure love he felt for his first wife. Drawn to his secretary because of her resemblance to Barley, he holds back. As the three of them move to Monachorum House, the web of affection becomes increasingly tangled.
Phillip feels very much alone, struggling to make a living for his family from his Norfolk farm. When a friend suggests a trial business partnership, he accepts, sending Lucy and the younger children to live with her brother. All the while he longs to write a novel on the age in which he is living.
The final volume of the Chronicle finds Phillip alone on Exmoor. Although he finds solace in nature, he is haunted by memories of comrades who fell in the first World War and by a feeling of failure at not preventing the sufferings of the second. At the depths of despair, he is caught in a storm.
Henry Williamson. His powers of description are such, that for me I was reduced to tears. It was not a dramatic or pathetic or remotely sad passage, merely the description of a journey. London to Lynmouth, Devon.With simple words he drew a picture of such ravishing power. It's as if bent over his...
The commander of the 180th Regiment not only allowed stretcher-bearers to take away the British wounded, but sent some of his own medical men to help them. By the morning of July 3 the last of the wounded were got away. Phillip, between periods of semi-consciousness follow...
Chapter 15WIGFULL, THISTLETHWAITE, MUTTON & CO.Ever since his arrival in South Devon Phillip had put off going to see the doctor in the hope that his lung would heal itself in the fresh air, with exercise; now, to prepare himself for the coming winter, he determined to begin a new life. He go...
Phillip had little thought of wild birds now; life was full of new prospects. It seemed to him that he had never lived before. There was his new friend the garage manager, the handsome Monty with the rich chuckling laugh, debonair manner, graceful figure, and dark, good-lo...