The January Man - A Year of Walking Britain ~ Christopher Somerville

This the second of my musings on this year's Wainwright Prize Short list, and I don't often splay a book out like this for your delectation but first things first with The January Man, A Year of Walking Britain by Christopher Somerville, and this delightful dust jacket...

The artwork is by Carry Ackroyd and this is one of those book covers that dawned on me as I read, realising that I was traversing the months across the jacket, written as they are chapter by chapter as Christopher Somerville 'walks' his father's life. Interesting that Carry has another book jacket on the Wainwright short list too, more about that one soon.

I was always going to love a book of memories, written by someone of my era (almost, Christopher Somerville four years older than me) and with the narrative structured around the scaffolding of a folk song.

Cue more diversions as I seek out renditions of The January Man. I knew I had heard it sung by Bert Jansch back in the day (I eventually find it on the Moonshine album)  and more recently by Rachel Unthank & The Winterset (now The Unthanks) on Cruel Sister..

'Oh the January man he walks abroad in woollen coat and boots of leather
The February man still wipes the snow from off his hair and blows his hand
The man of March he sees the Spring and wonders what the year will bring
And hopes for better weather

Through April rain the man goes down to watch the birds come in to share the summer
The man of May stands very still watching the children dance away the day
In June the man inside the man is young and wants to lend a hand
And grins at each new comer...'

  

It's a clever premise which drew me in and along with ease...

 

'The book follows a circle of walks around Britain, month by month through the course of a year, recording the nature, people, weather, landscape, music, and local traditions I came across, and whatever else called out to me along the way. It’s also a very personal account of a post-war father-son relationship, exploring the character of my father John, and the long walks we shared over many years which brought us closer together.'

 

The chances were high that at least some of Christopher Somerville's memories might chime with mine and I wasn't disappointed, and as a consequence there has been a lot of time spent meandering back through my own childhood too, and also my relationship with my dad. A sense of the values impressed upon him by his father's attitude to life... perseverance, strength in adversity, a belief in 'doing one's duty', a throw-away modesty about one's own achievements and a never-say-die approach all reminded me so much of my dad, despite their very different personalities and their post-war lives 

 

Somerville senior worked for GCHQ and was deeply involved in Cold War 'information' whilst my dad went into chemical engineering, but I understood this much...

'In the springtime of hope after the war young parents wanted to make everything perfect.'

And nor did they talk about the war for a long time... 

'We didn't have an inkling of how the war had stayed bubbling under the post-war lives of our parents' generation until, much later, hesitantly and by modest degrees, some of them began to talk about it.'

Like my dad, Christopher Somerville's father waited forty years before addressing 'the elephant in the room', his over a second pint of Old Peculiar, my dad's on a blog post that he wrote for me here back in 2006 entitled 'The Day War Broke Out'. To our amazement  Bugle Boy followed, and with thanks as always to Susan Hill who read that post and insisted that he should write a book, and if he did she would publish it. It was Susan who nicknamed him The Tinker, a name that he loved and certainly lived up to. 

 

The walks take Christopher Somerville to places various, the Lake District, the Long Mynd, Somerset, the island of Foula in Shetland, the Pennine Way, Lindisfarne and each with local history, folk-lore, geography and nature woven into the personal memories, and as the song makes its own way through the year too..

 

'And in July the man in cotton shirts he sits and thinks on being idle
The August man in thousands take the road and watch the sea and find the sun
September man is standing near to saddle up and lead the year
And Autumn is his bridle.'

 

I'm about an inch away from getting my guitar out of the loft as it is with my Summer of Joni pending but now it's imminent since reading this...

'The guitar was the instrument that liberated my whole generation of would-be music makers who never learned to decipher the dots...'

 

YES. YES, it absolutely was  My dad bought me my first guitar in the middle of my O Levels, who knows how much better I might have done in Physics had I not been busily wearing away the tips of my fingers learning C, F, Am, G in order to play Leaving on a Jet Plane. But it's still in there...when this guitar emerges I reckon I'll still be able to tune it and play it.

 

And so Somerville Senior ages with the song, and as the winter verse approached I was deeply engaged and braced for what December would bring...

 

'The man of new October takes the reins and early frost is on his shoulder
The poor November man sees fire and wind and mist and rain and winter air
December man looks through the snow to let eleven brothers know
They're all a little older...'

 

Strangely, given that I am already feeling a synchronicity and connection with The January Man, it should have come as no surprise that the death of Christopher Somerville's father would be almost identical to that of my own dad, three months from a diagnosis of cancer to the end.

 

And so the song moves through the year coming full circle...

And the January man comes round again in woollen coat and boots of leather
To take another turn and walk along the icy road he knows so well
The January man is here for starting each and every year
Along the way for ever.

 

Yes indeed, along the way for ever.

 

I'm not sure The January Man would have found me had it not been for the Wainwright Prize so how delighted I am that it has. I would love to know your thoughts...