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by Ian Marchant (Author)
A time-travelling, genealogical adventure,
bringing pre-industrial, rural, eighteenth-century England vividly to life on
the page.
One day Ian Marchant, acclaimed author of books
on music, railways and pubs, decided, as all
men of a certain age must, to have a dig around his family history.
Surprisingly quickly, a web search informed him that his seven-times-great
great-grandfather, Thomas Marchant had left a detailed diary from 1714 to 1728.
So far, so jolly ...
Life-loving diarist Thom - who liked a drink and a game of cards - feels
recognisably Marchant to Ian. With fascinating detail we learn about Thom's
family farm and fishponds; about dung, horses and mud; about beer, the wife's
nights out, his own job troubles and their shared worries for their children.
But as Ian digs deeper beyond the Sussex diary's bucolic portrait he discovers
a subtext - a family descended from immigrants, with anti-establishment
politics, who are struggling with illness, political instability and cash
crises - just as their country does three centuries on.
'When I was reflecting late one January evening
on the differences between Thom and me, I realised the unbridgeable thing that
comes between us is industrialisation. He lived right at its beginning, while I
am living somewhere towards its end. Old Thom Marchant was one of the last
people before industrialisation to understand how his world worked - and how to
be largely self-sufficient in it. He knew where his food came from, his fuel,
his water, his clothes. He knew how the welfare system worked, and was part of
its administration; he knew who looked after the roads, too. He collected
taxes. He was not separate from the system, but part of it.'
Rich with immersive detail, One Fine Day
draws a living portrait of Marchant family life in the 1720s and how their
England (rainy, muddy, politically turbulent, illness-ridden) became the
England of the 2020s.
Author Biography
Ian Marchant has worked for
twenty-five years as a writer, broadcaster and performer. His non-fiction books
include Parallel Lines, The Longest Crawl and A Hero for High
Times, which was long-listed for the Gordon Burn Prize. Ian has presented
numerous broadcasts for Radio 3 and Radio 4, in particular on psycho-geography
and contemporary rural affairs. He is an intermittent presenter on Radio 4's
long-running Open Country, and a regular diarist for the Church Times.
He has written for the Guardian, the Observer, the Daily
Telegraph and the Sunday Times. He has made numerous appearances as
a guest speaker, compere, quizmaster and lounge singer, and is also a creative
writing tutor and guest speaker for the Arvon Foundation. He lives in
Presteigne with his family.
