On the Trail of Flora Thompson (1876-1947) – John Owen Smith. May’23
John Owen Smith gave us a fascinating talk on the author of Lark Rise to Candleford.
As a local historian he became fascinated delving into the real people and places behind the pseudonyms used in her books. The books reflect village life in an agricultural community based on her childhood and youth in 1880-90’s rural Oxfordshire. In 1897 she was in Haslemere. She had various postings and positions working for the Post Office and at one point at Grayshott was teaching a young girl how to use the telegraph machine. George Bernard Shaw and Arthur Conan Doyle were her contemporaries, calling in at her post office in Grayshott (Heatherley) in her books. After being made redundant she moved to Bournemouth (1903-’16), where she was able to take advantage of the open shelf library. Open access was unusual at the time. She was an avid reader and was writing articles for magazines. In 1903 she had married John W. Thompson from Aldershott, also a post office worker. In 1916 the family moved to Liphook (called Peverel in her books). She tragically lost her brother Edwin who was killed during WW1 at Ypres. Another tragedy was the loss of her daughter Winifred to the flu pandemic of 1918-‘20. She also lost another son in WW11. She joined her husband in Dartmouth, Devon in 1928 when he was relocated there. Her first draft of Lark Rise to Candlefordwas sent to Oxford UP in 1938 and was an immediate success and later published as a trilogy (1944). She was over 60yrs old when writing Lark Rise to Candleford which is largely a portrait of rural village life based on her youth in 1880’s Buckingham (Candleford). Buckingham museum has a room dedicated to Flora Thompson. Some of her papers went to Austin, Texas after her daughter’s death. Flora died in Brixham in 1947 and was buried in Dartmouth, Devon.
John brought along a varied selection of books and photographs for members and guests to browse at leisure after the talk. He noted that her books are hard for librarians to classify as they combine elements of social history, the natural world, autobiography, and fiction. He also mentioned the BBC TV series which aired 2008-2011.
Check out John’s Flora Thompson website at http://www.johnowensmith.co.uk/flora/
Some of her publications:
1921 Bog Myrtle and Peat (poetry)
1939 Lark Rise to Candleford
1941 Over to Candleford
1943 Candleford Green
1948 Still Glides the Stream (swan song published posthumously)
John recommended the Gillian Lindsay biography below.
Flora Thompson – The Story of the Lark Rise Writer (R.Hale,1990) by Gillian Lindsay.