Ronald Blythe
| Ronald Blythe | |
|---|---|
| Born |
6 November 1922 Acton, Suffolk |
| Nationality | English |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Known for | Akenfield |
Ronald Blythe (born 6 November 1922) is an English writer, essayist and editor, best known for his work Akenfield: Portrait of an English Village (1969), an account of agricultural life in Suffolk from the turn of the century to the 1960s. He writes a long-running and considerably praised weekly column in the Church Times entitled Word from Wormingford.
Blythe was born in Acton, Suffolk; he was to be the eldest of six children. His father, who had seen action in the First World War at Gallipoli and in Palestine, came from generations of East Anglian farmers and farm workers. His mother was from London and had worked as a VAD nurse during the war. Blythe can remember as a child seeing the sugarbeet being farmed by men in army greatcoats and puttees.
He was educated at St Peter's and St Gregory's school in Sudbury, Suffolk, and grew up exploring churches, architecture, plants and books. He was, he said, "a chronic reader", immersing himself in French literature and writing poetry.
Blythe briefly served during the Second World War and spent the ten years up to 1954 working as a reference librarian in Colchester, where he founded the Colchester Literary Society. Through his work at the library he met Christine Nash, wife of the artist John Nash; she was looking for the score of Idomeneo. Christine Nash introduced Blythe to her husband, inviting him to their house, Bottengoms Farm near Wormingford on the border of Essex and Suffolk; he visited first in 1947. She later encouraged his ambitions to be a writer, finding him a small house on the Suffolk coast near Aldeburgh.
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