From the Wainwright Nature Prize Highly Commended author Nicola Chester, a rural narrative between two women in two different eras who both wanted to become farmers.
This is the story of Miss White, a woman who lived in the author’s village 80 years ago, a pioneer who realised her ambition to become a farmer during the Second World War, and how she worked to become accepted within this community. Nicola Chester, too, dreamed of becoming a farmer but working with horses was the only path open to her. Was it easier for women to become farmers in the 1940s than it is now?
Moving between Nicola’s own attempts to work outdoors and Miss White’s desire to farm a generation earlier, Nicola explores the parallels between their lives – and the differences. Miss White buys a derelict farm and begins to renovate and modernize it. As ghost (barn) owls flit between these two worlds, Nicola draws connections with farming and rural life in both times, from the role of women in rural communities in the modern day to Miss White’s experience in the 1940s. And how those farming modernizations have left the modern day with both a denuded landscape and farming community and a disconnect from nature.
Increasingly, Nicola’s research into past and present interlinks and illuminates her own battles to raise awareness of rural communities, outdoor work and the ongoing loss of farmland birds that were so familiar to Miss White.
Ghosts of the Farm: Two Women’s Journeys Through Time, Land and Community will be published by Chelsea Green in the UK and US on 30th September.
Available to pre-order from Bookshop.org, Waterstones, Blackwell’s and Amazon.
‘No one, but no one, writes like Nicola Chester. Her blend of grit, sensitivity, integrity, wisdom and artistry is unique. Ghosts of the Farm is a clear-eyed view of the social and ecological thinning of English rural life, but it’s also a breath of oxygen to its resilient embers of sustainability and equitability. A bittersweet and timely tonic for the soul of British farming’ – Amy-Jane Beer, author of The Flow
‘This captivating dual-stranded memoir puts rural women firmly in their place: right at the heart of the farm. Nicola Chester and her indomitable predecessor Miss Julia White are unforgettable guides to a changed and changing countryside’ – Melissa Harrison, author of All Among the Barley
‘Ghosts of the Farm is much more than a tale of two women struggling to become farmers while battling prejudice against their gender. Written in exquisite prose, it is a story celebrating the glory of the countryside and country living, a story of struggles and triumphs, in times of war and peace. I found myself rooting for both heroines’ – Rhys Bowen, New York Times and internationally best-selling author
‘This is a rich and riveting book, and I didn’t want it to end … it’s a gentle battle cry – heartwarming, melancholy and vital’ – Lissa Evans, author of Small Bomb at Dimperley
‘An absolutely fascinating insight into women and farming. Nicola Chester really knows how to bring the past alive’ – Claire Fuller, author of Unsettled Ground
‘Nicola’s evocation of Miss White truly haunts me. Energetic, enigmatic and with one foot poised over a chasm of change’ – Alison Brackenbury, poet and broadcaster
‘Nicola Chester will come to be seen as a Nan Shepherd of our time … she writes with a clarity that aches on the page. Ghosts of the Farm is devastatingly good. Hairs-on-the-back-of-my-neck good’ – Nick Acheson, author of The Meaning of Geese
‘A wonderfully evocative account of a fascinating and until now untold story, uniting two women’s passion for farming and the English countryside’ – Stephen Moss, author of Ten Birds That Changed the World
‘Through Nicola’s experiences, the heartbeats of ghosts are revived and woven into the present and future, reminding us that we are all rooted to the earth we share, live and eventually become’ – Hannah Bourne-Taylor, author of Nature Needs You
‘Nicola Chester is the John Clare of our time’ – Guy Shrubsole, author of The Lie of the Land
‘A heartening, haunted and beautifully written book that is a powerful paean to rural life and working the land’ – Rob Cowen, author of The North Road