Great Meadow: A Memoir

Description

First published in 1992, Great Meadow is volume five of Bogarde's best-selling memoirs Employing both the language and lucidity of the young boy that he evokes, the actor turned author, Dirk Bogarde, presents us with a charming recollection of his childhood. From 1927 to 1934 he lived in a remote cottage in the Sussex Downs with his sister Elizabeth and their strict but loving nanny, Lally. For the children it was an idyllic time of joy and adventure: of gleaning at the end of summer, of oil lamps and wells, of harvests and harvest mice in the Great Meadow. With great sensitivity and poignancy, this memoir captures the sounds and scents, the love and gentleness that surrounded the young boy as the outside world prepared to go to war.

Sir Dirk Bogarde was an English actor and novelist. Initially a matinee idol, Bogarde later acted in art-house films such as Death In Venice. As well as completing six novels, Bogarde wrote several volumes of autobiography. Between 1947 and 1991, Bogarde made more than sixty films. For over two decades he lived in Italy and France, where he began to write seriously. In 1985 he was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Letters by the University of St Andrews and in 1990 was promoted to Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government.

He has brought back a land of lost content, and its lamps still shine * TLS *