Laurie Lee

THE England that Laurie Lee wrote about so evocatively no longer exists. Perhaps it never existed, except in his imagination. In “Cider with Rosie”, his best-known book, there is, for example, a certain scrumpy haziness about this temptress of the haystacks, who “baptised me with her cidrous kisses”. The Rosie of the book shyly identified herself after it became a bestseller. They were marvellous days, Rosie recalled, but she dismissed the idea that she and Laurie had been “sweethearts or anything”. Neither had she drunk cider with him, or anyone else. “I suppose all writers exaggerate,” she said. Still, admirers of Laurie Lee's writing have never been put off by mere realities. He thought of himself primarily as a poet. Facts should not get in the way of the words.