For my money, June is the finest month. The promise of summer flames out, like shining from shook foil (thank you Gerard Manley Hopkins, (http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/44395) . Before 9.00 am, heat can stack up into a lazy stillness so that one can happily take morning coffee in the back garden.
What mostly makes the month such a ravishing pleasure is LIGHT. The days lengthen as the year climbs to its apex on the 22nd of June. Intensify the pleasure with Ann Wroe’s (http://mediadirectory.economist.com/people/ann-wroe/) recent mesmerising meditation on the qualities of light. This book is a hybrid of biography, memoir and nature writing. The qualities of light, and the effects it has produced in writers and artists, are shown through figures such as Eric Ravilious, William Blake, Samuel Palmer, Samuel Coleridge, Edward Thomas, JMW Turner, and John Clare. Much of Six Facets of Light is set on the paths that wind around the Sussex and Kent coast, with Eastbourne – officially Britain’s sunniest town – as its pivot. It uses notebooks and sketchbooks to illustrate those aspects of light to which we could pay more attention.
Here’s hoping the soon-to-be-upon-us Lanimers – officially Britain’s most spectacular summer gala day – is filled with light and sunshine.
For Ann Wroe’s book, Six Facets of Light, enquire at your local library or consult https://www.amazon.co.uk/Six-Facets-Light-Ann-Wroe/dp/1910702323/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1465020824&sr=1-1&keywords=six+facets+of+light for full bibliographic detail. There are 364 other days in the year than Lanimer Day to enjoy it.
320 pages in Jonathan Cape
First published 2016
ISBN 978-1910702321
Ann Wroe