I read many of Alison Uttley’s Little Grey Rabbit books when I was young, but quickly grew out of them, and fond as I was of them I moved onto something a little more exciting… Tarzan, I think! Browsing in a second-hand book shop I came across a book by her, ‘Recipes From An Old Farmhouse’. It is charming, with illustrations by Pauline Baynes and first published in 1966; it has the sort of chapters you might expect of farmhouse recipes, including Pickles and Chutneys, Scones and Pikelets, Cakes and Tea-Time Delicacies, but also Rhubarb, Marrow Jam and Marmalade, Sweetmeats, Medicines, and Easter Baking… and intriguingly, Thor Cake and Gingerbread! These are just the chapters, but the index offers some wonderful sounding treats, almond hardbake, beestings, canary pudding, Dr Broster’s lemon water, green snow, kissing crusts (I like the sound of that!) tennis cake, ‘three oils’ chest congestion remedy!
I realised that familiar as I am with Alison Uttley ( I actually knew someone who was also called Alison Uttley) I knew absolutely nothing about her. Because I read her books when I was young I supposed she was about the same age as my parents; in fact she was more contemporary with my grandparents, born Alice Taylor in 1884 in Derbyshire. I was surprised to learn that her first passion was science, surprised because I had imagined that she had always been a writer…
Alison was only the second woman to have graduated from Manchester University in 1906, having read physics. She met her husband James through knowing his sister and they married in 1911 and must have so happy to have had a child, John in 1914… but 1914 was the start of the 1st World War, which had devastating effects on the family. The health of James was severely affected by the war, and tragically he killed himself in 1930 by drowning. How devastating that must have been for Alison and John; to support herself she began to write, stories for young children at first and then for older readers and adults. She wrote many books about the country, and received great acclaim for her work. She died in 1976 aged 91.
Lois Elsden 