Thursday 6th December, between 7pm to 9pm in the village hall, sees the launch of Sue Robinson’ Chitterne - A Wiltshire Village. All are invited to attend, and Sue will be signing copies of her excellent and absorbing book, available at £9.95. Having had the privilege of reviewing the text for Chit-Chat, I recommend it as a must-buy Christmas purchase for yourself and friends.

Sue has combined a prodigious amount of painstaking research on the social and economic history of Chitterne, from the earliest recorded Anglo Saxon beginnings, to events of present days.

The strength of the book lies not in the chronicling of events and their impact on the village’s development (although that is executed most competently) but in the warm and sympathetic presentation of a small, almost isolated community which has been shaped by the industry and ingenuity of its inhabitants over many centuries. This is an appealing study of how the folk of Chitterne survived changing times, sometimes flourishing - sometimes declining, but always finding a way to survive and maintain a settled rural existance in a changing and turbulent world. It is wholly absorbing and manages to be a ‘good read’ where many such books are dry, academic and useful for reference alone.

For me, the book’s real fascination is the way Sue evokes pictures about the ordinary folk of Chitterne. Too often, just the lives of the wealthy and aristocratic are chronicled and we see little of the everyday existence of those who served them. This text gets ‘down and dirty’ with the everyday lives of people – particularly children - who shaped our village:

‘The threshing season meant excitement among the children when the traction engine towing a threshing machine trundled through the village. Following along behind came a cartload of coal and a barrel full of water and keeping up alongside as word got round, a growing band of children. The boys looking forward to the ‘ratting’ as the ricks were demolished, which they accomplished standing in a circle wielding stout sticks, with the help of the foreman’s ferocious terrier dog.’