A further collection of 21 broadcast talks on the BBC, made between 1936 and 1967. Ten of these were broadcast in the BBC’s Empire Service in 1938/39 and concern the countryside and farming. Four talks are about Williamson’s ongoing struggle to bring life back to the derelict farm in Norfolk that he had bought in 1937, while a later broadcast has the intriguing title ‘On Seeing Marilyn Monroe'.

Illustrated, approx. 105 print pages, paperback, Henry Williamson Society, 1993; e-book 2014

During the late 1930sHenry Williamson became a broadcaster of some repute on the BBC. Pen and Plough collects a further twenty-one scripts of the broadcast talks given by him between 1936 and 1967. Ten of these were broadcast only in the BBC’s Empire Service (forerunner of its renowned World Service), and concern the countryside and farming – the BBC called them ‘nice, pleasant, dreamy talks, to make people homesick for England’. A further four talks are about HW’s ongoing struggle to bring life back to the derelict farm in North Norfolk that he had bought in 1937, while one of the later broadcasts has the intriguing title ‘On Seeing Marilyn Monroe’. There is a separate section of talks on books and writers, including broadcasts on R. D. Blackmore’s famous Exmoor novel Lorna Doone, and the novelist Arnold Bennett.

Pen and Plough, with the companion Spring Days in Devon (both available as e-books), contain all forty-three of the surviving scripts of Henry Williamson’s popular talks for the BBC.

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