As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning by Laurie Lee

Superb! The second volume of Laurie Lee’s autobiography, As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning, vaults to the top of my Best Reads this Year. This man can write!

It’s 1934 and Lee is nineteen years old. One fine morning he wraps a violin and nugget of cheese in a blanket and, with hazel stick in hand, walks out of his Cotswold village and down to Southampton and London. He sleeps in fields, takes tea with tramps, and busks - surprised to be ‘neither arrested nor told to shut up.’

With a romantic notion of white roads and orange trees in mind, he sails to Spain, where he’s immediately attacked by wild dogs. Zamora, Valladolid. On and on he walks, accumulating language, blisters, and sunburn. He walks with olive-laden mule carts to Segovia, and in Toledo, collapses with sunstroke into the well-pickled arms of poet Roy Campbell.

“…if you want to see blood, stick around - there’s going to be plenty.” 130

On, relentlessly, on. Cadiz, Seville, Malaga. Lee unrolls his blanket in Almuñécar, becoming a hotel fiddler, playing in the evenings alongside a tubby gigolo on the accordion. On the shore, silent fishermen haul in pitiful nets. There’s talk of war. Farmers and serving staff plot in dark corners. Political tensions rise with the summer heat; the new words are fascism and communism, the new colour scarlet red.

“There was also a platoon of teenage girls armed with hand-grenades. Nobody joked with them.” 175

It’s been a long time since I’ve read with a highlighter, but I turned the pages of this book livid yellow. Lee’s imagery is lush and surprising, bringing his adventures to vivid life. Highly recommended.

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Lee’s account continues in A Moment of War, as he staggers, starry-eyed, over the Pyrenees to join the war.