num_pages: 304
description: As a boy James Rebanks's grandfather taught him to work the land the old way. Their family farm in the Lake District hills was part of an ancient agricultural landscape: a patchwork of crops and meadows of pastures grazed with livestock and hedgerows teeming with wildlife. And yet by the time James inherited the farm it was barely recognisable. The men and women had vanished from the fields; the old stone barns had crumbled; the skies had emptied of birds and their wind-blown song.English Pastoral is the story of an inheritance: one that affects us all. It tells of how rural landscapes around the world were brought close to collapse and the age-old rhythms of work weather community and wild things were lost. And yet this elegy from the northern fells is also a song of hope: of how guided by the past one farmer began to salvage a tiny corner of England that was now his doing his best to restore the life that had vanished and to leave a legacy for the future.This is a book about what it means to have love and pride in a place and how against all the odds it may still be possible to build a new pastoral: not a utopia but somewhere decent for us all.
language: English
title: Pastoral Song: A Farmer’s Journey
publisher: Custom House