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Once Upon a Raven's Nest: A Life On Exmoor In An Epoch Of Change
'This is a rich, beautiful and deeply moving book' GEORGE MONBIOT'I loved this book' CLOVER STROUDOnce Upon a Raven's Nest is the story of a working class man, one Thomas Hedley of Exmoor, and of the planet during the period of its great acceleration towards the current climate emergency.Born in 1955 to a poor family in Devon Thomas refused to conform. His fierce independence, recklessness and contrariness led not only to scrapes and self-inflicted dangers but to a life enriched by the love of women. Catrina Davies came to know him in his last years and has given his life and times in his own words, creating a rich, pungent language in a knowing, poetic and poignant voice.We learn of his accumulation of engines, tools and guns, the complexity of his connection to nature, the animals he loved and his desire to hunt them. He recounts the terrible consequences of his fatal attraction to risk and machinery which led to his being paralysed for the last years of his life, confined to a wheelchair, hopelessly dependent but still watching, noticing, recording, loving the world.The narrative is interwoven with a sequence of factual entries that chart the impending climate catastrophe and the consequences of our collective choices to ignore the warning of an environment on the verge of collapse.Once Upon A Raven's Nest is an unforgettable history of a life that is almost lost and an account of the destruction man has wrought on the earth in the time that Hedley worked the land.'Stunning. Urgent. Unforgettable' TANYA SHADRICK'This has the unmistakable smell of a classic' CHARLES FOSTER
312 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 13, 2023
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
February 2, 2023
This is a book that is hard to define by genre, it is part biography of a man and part transition of a world, but it absolutely can be classified as a beautiful and timely must-read book. I closed the cover in tears, shed for the life of both a single human being and the whole earth, as Catrina Davies wove her intimate memoir of Thomas Hedley into an everyman call to see the changes humanity has collectively wrought on the planet that sustains us.
The changes that we reflect on in Tomas Hedley’s life have far reaching consequences for him and for us all. Our changing relationship with work and the type of work that we do, our increasing disconnection from the land and reliance on third parties to provide our needs, our desire to get away from the places we grow up in rather than commit ourselves to them. All of these things can be seen in or around Thomas’s life and all draw us towards an unstable, increasingly catastrophic, future.
The voice belongs to Thomas, brought to us through Catrina with some creativity but no loss of clarity, and it allows us into the small, every day, private thoughts of a man we do not know but quickly becomes part of us. It is a deeply affecting narrative. Thomas is no hero and makes no claims to be but so much is revealed in his reflections on a life lived through rapidly changing times through which he both thrives and falters.
Often memoir and biography is about profile and prominence, but this one is about conscious experience, noticing the ways the world is changing and the impact this is having. It is a book to slow you down, to make you look around, to reconnect you to the people and place where you are, all the things that we need to do in order to shift our way of life towards one in communion with our environment rather than conflict.
Progress, the removal of limitations, has been our guiding star throughout this period but it moves our focus into a future that is always imagined and just out of reach, rather than the wonder of the present now. I sometimes wonder what we would do if we could not imagine a future to strive for, would we just dwell in the present moment and absorb it as a miraculous gift? If so, how might that change the world?
Who knows where Once Upon a Raven’s Nest will take you, but it feels to me like there is some magic in what at first appears such a small thing, but as the blurb suggests when you add it all together all those small things become a devastating and beautiful whole. I’m already struggling to see how any book in 2023 will be a greater blessing.
The changes that we reflect on in Tomas Hedley’s life have far reaching consequences for him and for us all. Our changing relationship with work and the type of work that we do, our increasing disconnection from the land and reliance on third parties to provide our needs, our desire to get away from the places we grow up in rather than commit ourselves to them. All of these things can be seen in or around Thomas’s life and all draw us towards an unstable, increasingly catastrophic, future.
The voice belongs to Thomas, brought to us through Catrina with some creativity but no loss of clarity, and it allows us into the small, every day, private thoughts of a man we do not know but quickly becomes part of us. It is a deeply affecting narrative. Thomas is no hero and makes no claims to be but so much is revealed in his reflections on a life lived through rapidly changing times through which he both thrives and falters.
Often memoir and biography is about profile and prominence, but this one is about conscious experience, noticing the ways the world is changing and the impact this is having. It is a book to slow you down, to make you look around, to reconnect you to the people and place where you are, all the things that we need to do in order to shift our way of life towards one in communion with our environment rather than conflict.
Progress, the removal of limitations, has been our guiding star throughout this period but it moves our focus into a future that is always imagined and just out of reach, rather than the wonder of the present now. I sometimes wonder what we would do if we could not imagine a future to strive for, would we just dwell in the present moment and absorb it as a miraculous gift? If so, how might that change the world?
Who knows where Once Upon a Raven’s Nest will take you, but it feels to me like there is some magic in what at first appears such a small thing, but as the blurb suggests when you add it all together all those small things become a devastating and beautiful whole. I’m already struggling to see how any book in 2023 will be a greater blessing.
March 29, 2023
I am absolutely blown away by the power and beauty of this book.
Catrina has crafted something so important. This must be her Magnus Opus... I hope it gets the Nationwide or even Global attention that it deserves.
Going off for a little cry now...!
Catrina has crafted something so important. This must be her Magnus Opus... I hope it gets the Nationwide or even Global attention that it deserves.
Going off for a little cry now...!
May 23, 2023
A beautiful book that does full justice to the friend that it commemorates. Catrina Davies perfectly captures the Exmoor dialect of a man who worked his entire life on the land, in the woodlands, hedgerows and moors. He must have been quite the character. This is a layered book. It tells the life of the man, rechristened Thomas for the purposes of the book, but flits around in two timelines, telling his life story in the last years of his life, when he was in a wheelchair, but also his memories in chronological order as Catrina pieces together his extraordinary life as he told it to her, aware that she wanted to write a book about him. All this, interleaved with facts and comments on how we are destroying the natural world, the world whose downfall is mirrored by the deterioration of Thomas’s own body.
Needless to say, I adored this book. I couldn’t wait to get back to it to find out just how Thomas ended up in a wheelchair, while marvelling at the full and adventurous life he lived. It very cleverly written; almost a thriller.
Disclaimer: My sincere thanks to the author and publisher for making this available as a digital ARC on NetGalley. My views are all my own. I can recommend another of Catrina Davies’s books, Homesick: Why I Live in a Shed. I haven’t finished it yet, but I’ve read a good way through and it’s equally well-written.
Needless to say, I adored this book. I couldn’t wait to get back to it to find out just how Thomas ended up in a wheelchair, while marvelling at the full and adventurous life he lived. It very cleverly written; almost a thriller.
Disclaimer: My sincere thanks to the author and publisher for making this available as a digital ARC on NetGalley. My views are all my own. I can recommend another of Catrina Davies’s books, Homesick: Why I Live in a Shed. I haven’t finished it yet, but I’ve read a good way through and it’s equally well-written.
April 18, 2023
This book is a tour de force. The structure is a bit strange, as the author intercuts Tommy’s story with factual/statistical short chapters and quotations about the deterioration of the environment, but these are allowed to stand on their own merits and Ms Davies neither opines nor preaches. I grew up in Somerset and was born two years before Tommy, so have seen the same changes. I have also met many characters like him. He was a true countryman and by the sound of it, something of a loveable rogue! His voice is rendered so authentically it’s like sitting with him in the pub, listening to his yarns over a pint of cider. After spending years finding interesting ways to injure himself and mostly getting away with it, he finally comes badly unstuck and the second part of the book deals unsparingly with his decline and eventual death. I don’t usually cry over a person I’ve never known, but it was so moving and sad. All I would say in conclusion is this - if you have any poetry in your soul, read it because it’s marvellous.
July 5, 2023
This book is a challenge to review as it is quite unique in its formatting and storytelling. This is by no means a criticism, I absolutely loved it.
Catrina Davis explores the impact of climate change on the earth and humans. She intersperses her text with key statistics of relevant events. She demonstrates changes by personalising the facts with an account of Ralph Hedley Collard's life growing up in rural Exmoor. She spent time with him and the stories he tells are a valuable insight into the old ways and a lost style of living. The drastic changes he had observed in his lifetime, indicate our urgent need to revert to these early patterns of life.
Collard talks about his childhood and adult experiences, all of them littered with a love of the natural world and his experiences in it, both as a poacher, then a conservationist. Davis has provided an outstanding, deeply emotional read that crosses numerous genres.
Catrina Davis explores the impact of climate change on the earth and humans. She intersperses her text with key statistics of relevant events. She demonstrates changes by personalising the facts with an account of Ralph Hedley Collard's life growing up in rural Exmoor. She spent time with him and the stories he tells are a valuable insight into the old ways and a lost style of living. The drastic changes he had observed in his lifetime, indicate our urgent need to revert to these early patterns of life.
Collard talks about his childhood and adult experiences, all of them littered with a love of the natural world and his experiences in it, both as a poacher, then a conservationist. Davis has provided an outstanding, deeply emotional read that crosses numerous genres.
April 14, 2023
This is a book I loved, part story of a man living in the country and part reflection on our relationship with the environment and how we are in a time of changes.
The two sides work well together and I loved the storytelling and the story of Thomas.
I don't always agree with the author as this is the story of a person in a specific environment. An African farmer or a South European farmer could share some of Thomas' choices but some would be different.
What I loved was how it made me think about the relationship with the land: I'm a keen gardener so I know what it means the wheel of the seasons and the feel of the earth on your hands.
But I also work in high tech and it's something very far from the natural world.
A thought provoking and compelling book.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this arc, all opinions are mine
The two sides work well together and I loved the storytelling and the story of Thomas.
I don't always agree with the author as this is the story of a person in a specific environment. An African farmer or a South European farmer could share some of Thomas' choices but some would be different.
What I loved was how it made me think about the relationship with the land: I'm a keen gardener so I know what it means the wheel of the seasons and the feel of the earth on your hands.
But I also work in high tech and it's something very far from the natural world.
A thought provoking and compelling book.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this arc, all opinions are mine
April 28, 2023
A beautiful, poignant look at nature through the lens of one man's life, juxtaposed against mankind's terrifying journey towards extinction. A must read.
September 16, 2023
Incredibly moving, thought provoking, desperate at times but with hope infused throughout. Beautiful.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews