Kilvert's Diary, 1870-79 (Penguin)

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The first entry in Kilvert's diaries in which he records his naked bathing was for 4 September 1872, at Weston-super-Mare. At last by a wild effort and tremendous heave the ponderous coffin was borne up the steps and through the door into the Cathedral where the choristers, quite unconscious of the scene and the fearful struggle going on behind, were singing up the nave like a company of angels.

The diaries of Robert Francis Kilvert (1840–1879), kept from 1870 to 1879, are a unique treasury celebrating the Welsh and English countryside and the variety of characters inhabiting it.Mrs Kilvert removed all the notebooks from 9 September 1875 to 1 March 1876 and 27 June 1876 to 31 December 1877, we believe for personal reasons. Francis Kilvert also published pleasant but conventional poetry, republished by the Kilvert Society in Collected verse : 3rd December 1840 - 23rd September 1879 by the Reverend Francis Kilvert in 1968. Kilvert is a keen observer of place (in this case, mostly the Hay valley area of Wales) and a great describer, and often quite amusing. It took either Kilvert or me a little while to get into it -- diaries can sound so self-conscious, and be rendered so much less interesting because of it.

The thing I enjoyed most about this though was its history from someone who was actually alive at the time. A country clergyman born in 1840, Kilvert spent much of his time visiting parishioners, walking the lanes and fields of Herefordshire and writing in his diary. An amateur, sub-Wordsworthian poet, he’s always going into raptures over the landscapes he crosses on his long walks around the countryside. I liked the older people's stories of the olden days -- it's not just the Victorian's present that's different to ours, it's the past that they're most familiar with. It may not add up to much, it may not make a damn bit of sense, but it happened and it was real and if we don’t hold on to it, who will?

While he generally comes off as a pretty sympathetic narrator, he often walks the line between a romantic appreciation of feminine beauty and being kind of a creeper.