Owslebury Bottom Find!

Owslebury Bottom, published in 1991 by Peter Hewett, was brought to my notice by his niece, who has retired with her husband to Winchester.  Although it is now out of print it can still be purchased from Amazon. 

 

In 1992, Peter Hewett died, shortly after finishing this unsentimental account of village life in the 1920s.  The book, which has an introduction by Trevor Nunn, is autobiographical, charting the fluctuating fortunes of the Hewett family over a couple of years.  It is seen through Peter's eyes during his early childhood, which was spent in Owslebury Bottom.

 

Peter's mother moved to Owslebury at the end of the First World War when Peter was a baby, while his father, a social climber, continued to work in London.  Peter was intensely interested in the natural world, noticing each change in the seasons and he collected and catalogued butterflies and also bird's eggs, with scientific precision. 

 

The family left Owslebury to move back to London because they considered that Peter was too far from Winchester to be able to attend secondary school.  To his great sadness, his collection was left behind in the move.

 

An extract from the preface:

 

'The Hampshire village where I spent my early childhood is Owslebury, pronounced Ozzle-berry, not Owls-berry.

 

This book is based on my personal recollections of life in what was then an isolated village.  There was no radio, television, public transport or, as far as I remember, even a newspaper or telephone to link us to the outer world'.

 

  View image

Diana and Peter Hewett's website produced by their granddaughter.

 

6 August 2009 from Cordelia Gray

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