Review of Paul Sullivan's book The Peak District Year, by Julie Bunting
This review is by Julie Bunting, and was published originally in
The Peak Advertiser, the Peak District's local free newspaper,
on 24th April 2006, and is reproduced with Julie's kind permission.
THE PEAK DISTRICT YEAR
Author Paul Sullivan of Buxton has really fleshed out the bones of
surviving customs and traditions to assemble this 160-page
compendium, truthfully described as 'A Derbyshire Almanac: The What's
on, Who's Who and Why-on-Earth Guide to Derbyshire and the Peak
District'.
A fascinating local pointer to the invention of the safety pin launches
one rare tale after another, retold alongside details of annual events as
the year progresses. Witty headings and tangental thought-association
provide such incredible links as Sunday Mass Murder and church
timbers embedded with lead shot; A Pig of a Find and Roman
workmanship; Woolly Thinking and law-breaking corpses; Whit's End
and the Castleton Garland; and an animal in Pork Condition in Baslow.
Potentially useful light-hearted advice extends to putting a year on a
stick, what a woman should wear when proposing to a man, and the
best time to drink from a Peakland 'fertility' well.
It comes as no surprise to read that this book took two years to
compile, yet Paul Sullivan declares that it could be written ten times over
with entirely different stories and references. Perhaps he means to try,
for he extends a brave invitation for readers to 'inundate me with
correspondence.'
So in that spirit I hope that he won't mind checking out a couple of
points that seem to have been afflicted by a certain unlucky number.
Firstly, the title of a gentleman referred to on 13 February and secondly,
on 13 August, the name of an historic house plus a mix-up with
someone else's garden. Minor niggles in an abundance of carefully
produced text but he did ask ...
Illustrated with enviable line drawings and photographs, The Peak
District Year is published by
Churnet Valley Books at £8.95. On sale in
local outlets or to order quoting ISBN 1-904546-15-3.
Top
[Created 9 Apr 2006. Last updated 24 Oct 2008 - 11:02 by Rosemary Lockie]