Advice to the Tired

Advice to the Tired

Advice to the tired, the fretful, the fed up; go to a library, any library, and there mooch among the books.

The books will help. The picking down, the flicking through with the freedom to reject; this will do much for bruised or soured vanity. The finding of a book alight with interest but on the bottom shelf, this will reward and delight and put a glow in November chill.

There came into my possession yesterday a book that seems as though it may well be one of those "alight with interest", though "on the bottom shelf", and it is the book containing the above short piece. The author is Vian Smith (1919-1969) and the title of the book is Green Country, published by Bob Mann's Longmarsh Press.

I sometimes wonder to myself just how many brilliant writers, published or unpublished during their lifetimes, have now been forgotten, either entirely, or almost entirely. A discovery like this seems to suggest to me the answer: an uncountable number. Some writers, in the extent of their readership and influence, will resemble some succesful species of animal or plant to be seen everywhere on the planet, or everywhere in a particular country, such as, well, such as the human race, perhaps, that most mainstream – from a human point of view – of all species. Other writers will be like a rare flower that is found only on one particular mountain slope, or some arboreal mammal confined in dwindling numbers to the enigmatic forests of Madagascar.

Vian (to rhyme with Brian) Smith, would be the latter kind of author. For me, to discover him is not less wonderful than it is for a naturalist to discover some new species of moth or cave-shrimp.

Green Country collects together a great number of Vian Smith's short pieces of journalism relating to the life and history of the author's native South Devon, and particularly to Dartmoor, the 'Land of Thunder':

… a name given by the people of border villages who looked up to the growling clouds and watched the weather grow.

I have only read a handful of the pieces so far, but already I find them, and Smith's terse style, fascinating.

Should anyone be interested in buying (for £7.99) and reading the book, I am told that they can write directly to the publisher, Bob Mann, at this address:

[email protected]

I shall leave you with some more of Vian Smith's words, from another short piece, called, 'Respect for all Life':

I look to the day when all life will be respected; when all who feel as I do will work for the safety and protection of the vulnerable. They will be maligned and mocked and derided as sentimentalists. But they will be feared, not because they are powerful, but because cruelty is its own enemy. Perhaps a hundred years from now it will be much better.