Ronald on Clare [click for full article]

[Ronald Blythe]

Some film-makers have come to make a DVD about the poet John Clare. They move the furniture around, put the outraged cat on the doorstep, light the scene where I am to sit on a great old wooden chair on which I rarely sit, and we begin. "Say all that you want to: we can always cut."

I have spoken so much about this writer that I am worried about sounding glib. His poetry and prose steady my answers to the interviewer. His hawks and Northamptonshire birds of all kinds float in the air once more. The heatwave rain falls luxiously on the dense flowers beyond the window. The cross cat is let in.

Word from Wormingford
Church Times 23rd June 2006