AFTER 30 years of writing books, Frome author, John Payne, says he is thinking about hanging up his boots (or whatever writers do when they retire). In anticipation of this event John has produced a new book, ‘A West Country Homecoming’, published this month by Hobnob Press.
‘A West Country Homecoming’ has come out of John’s love for his home area and is underpinned by 30 years of writing experience. He has nine books to his name and has written extensively about the English West Country as well as the Catalonia region where he lived as a young man.
John has also written and co-authored an impressive range of community publications. These include the acclaimed book, ‘Working Memories’, in which local people share the stories of their working lives (the second edition is just out).
John is from the West Country by birth and was born and brought up in Bath. He attended the City of Bath Boys’ School (now Beechen Cliff School) and continued his education by collecting degrees from the universities of Manchester, Glasgow and London. After living and working in Barcelona, he moved to a successful teaching career in further, adult and higher education.
A major turning-point for John came when the Inner London Education Authority was abolished in 1990 and he was made redundant. By now married, and with three young children at home, he pursued a new ‘double’ career as an education and training consultant and as a writer of non-fiction books, with the support of his wife, Sandra, and his family.
After the children had grown up, he and Sandra moved to Frome in 1998, where he is currently a big supporter of many Frome organisations, including ‘Home in Frome’ and ‘Frome Writers’ Collective’. John is very much someone who joins in and has become a stalwart member of a local choir, swimming club, allotment group and poetry class. He is also very proud of his long-term involvement with Bath City Football Club
“It was a good time to move back to the West Country,” John says. “As many people are now discovering, it is very possible to work from home and enjoy both the countryside and a gentler way of life – we just did that early!”
He describes ‘A West Country Homecoming’ as “history written backwards’: a journey in reverse which walks the reader from the present into the past, through the landscape of North Somerset, Bath and West Wiltshire, while discussing family and social history. Subjects tackled along the way range from education to religion, to water, to politics.”
It is clear that a great deal of energy went into researching the towns and villages featured in the book. A lot of time, John says, went into investing his West Country family, too. He confided that he needed to check the facts to counteract his family’s tendency to rewrite history. Grandma Payne, the family matriarch, was especially prone to treating the past to a bit of selective rewriting!
There are stories about Charles Payne, who went to Bath to earn his fortune, but died in the Bath Workhouse, and about a great-grandfather who drowned in Hong Kong Harbour. Happily, there are also tales of other family members with more favourable outcomes.
There are some good historical stories too: how Bishop Thomas Bekynton shared the cathedral waters with the people of Wells and why Bishop Thomas Ken is buried in Frome churchyard. Not all of these accounts involve bishops – readers will also learn the true story of how Bladud, swineherd and king, ended up as the mascot of Bath City Football Club.
But John’s book is more than a sum of its parts in that it addresses the unrecorded gaps between those parts. As the owner of Hobnob Press, John Chandler explains: “This book explores not just what we know, but also the many silences and omissions which dot our own personal histories and those of our families and communities”.
‘A West Country Homecoming’ is illustrated with over 100 photographs and is bursting with stories – some sad, some happy, some funny – which come thick and fast through the pages. It brings people and landscapes from the past to life in a way which captivates and delights. It’s a recommended read for winter evenings by the fire. Some of his friends may doubt John’s claim that this will probably be his last book, but – if it is – it’s a great legacy.
John Payne, A West Country Homecoming, Hobnob Press, ISBN 978-1-906978-93-8 Price: £14.95
