Deakin: ‘Notes from Walnut Tree Farm’

 Roger Deakin was a creature of place.

When he was still in his 20s, he bought a 16th-century farmhouse that was mostly a ruin. The fireplace was solid, though, and he camped out there and gradually rebuilt the place. The house had a spring-fed moat, and Deakin was a great swimmer, even in winter.

If you are a creature of place, you don’t just live in a house. You live in a community that has roads and roadsides that must be walked. The roadside ditches contain plants that must be identified. The habits of the living things that make up the place can’t be a continual mystery — not if you live there, not if you are more than a tourist.

Deakin strikes me as the kind of person who must know the creatures of the place — the plants, the animals, the people. To not know the place and is to be out of place.

His collection of notes is about what it’s like to live in Suffolk. He tells us what the birds are like, what walks on brutally cold mornings are like and what it’s like to realize that a bit of overlooked landscape you’ve passed every day for years was an ancient farm with a moat.

As a narrative, the notes don’t lead anywhere. They are bits in a mosaic. Each piece contributes to the larger picture. The picture is a mainly of a place in Suffolk and of the peculiar cast of Deakin’s mind.

• Roger Deakin, Notes from Walnut Tree Farm; London: Penguin Books, 2009.