House and Garden
20 July 2010

Described as a ‘photographic essay’, this beautiful book is lyrical, perceptive, imagination portrait of life in the English countryside through the seasons. It roams indoors and outdoors, visits fairs and sporting events, and captures country people going about their business, lingering in interiors both modest and grand. It is very large and fastidiously produced book, and the photographs by Andrew Montgomery are breathtaking. Jasper Conran is one of our foremost designers – from fashion to opera sets – but here he reveals himself as a passionate and thoughtful champion of the countryside. It is a cri de coeur for a greater appreciation of the rural way of life and a warning of how fragile it is. Many of the places in the book are ones he knows and loves, others are the result of encounters on a year- journey round England. Of some children’s enjoyment of dancing and wellie-throwing at a Devon flower festival, he asks, ‘Is it nostalgic to hope your children will prefer simple, active pleasures over expensive, passive ones?’ Yet although enjoying this quite expensive book is a passive pleasure, it is a delightful and thought-provoking one. Susan Crewe