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One Fine Day
- A Journey Through English Time
- Narrated by: Ian Marchant
- Length: 13 hrs and 9 mins
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One Fine Day
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Summary
A time-travelling, genealogical adventure, bringing pre-industrial, rural, eighteenth-century England vividly to life.
One day Ian Marchant decided, as all men of a certain age must, to have a dig around his family history. Surprisingly quickly, a web search informed him that his seven-times-great great-grandfather, Thomas Marchant, had left a detailed diary from 1714 to 1728.
Diarist Thom – who liked a drink and a game of cards – feels recognisably Marchant to Ian. With immersive detail we learn about Thom’s family farm and fishponds; about dung, horses and mud; about beer, the wife’s nights out, his own job troubles and their shared worries for their children.
But as Ian digs deeper beyond the Sussex diary’s bucolic portrait he discovers a subtext – a family descended from immigrants, with anti-establishment politics, who are struggling with illness, political instability and cash crises – just as their country does three centuries on.
Critic reviews
'One very fine book' Spectator
'Infectiously curious... a delightful thing' Financial Times
'Original and entertaining' Daily Mail