A novelist who died around 40 years ago, Delderfield penned sagas of England in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Classically liberal in temperament, he brought a thoughtful civility to the world of the blooming upper middle class, schoolmasters returned from the wreckage of the First World War, and country life in all of its particulars.
The novelist used details such as flowers and birds, smells and buildings to evoke a particular place -- Devon farms, London during the years when the railroad made it such a dangerous, dirty, fascinating Victorian town.
It is because of him that I have learned to watch for wildflowers.
We have lots of them around here. As spring turns to summer, and then to fall, the lovely ones that adorn our roads will bloom and die, giving up their spots (until next year) to other volunteers until the chill of autumn covers them with leaves.
As much as I loved to read about Delderfields's lovely forests and pastures, I am horrible about remembering the names of the flowers that beautify the roadsides and farms on my long walks through Glenmoore.
Wild violets. Bluets. Queen Anne's lace and buttercups. I can't get much further without a book or some pictures online.
But I feel the wildflowers. They transport me to a more romantic time, when I was pacing the moors, or scanning the sea from the cliffs, waiting for my lover to come and rescue me from the mundane realities of homework and dinner.
Know what?
They still, in memory, take me there.
Even if I have no idea what they are called. The child of decades ago didn't know, either.
She just knew they were magical...
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