The gentle intoxications of Laurie Lee

He was always lucky, and he knew it: lucky in the secure rural intimacy of the upbringing described in Cider with Rosie; in the love of some passionate, clever women, whose guidance and support get rather less than their due in As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning; and in having survived the Spanish civil war — the subject of A Moment of War — despite seeing action (though on his part this involved more seeing than action) in the terrible last battle of Teruel, and being imprisoned three times as a suspected spy. Behind and beyond all that, he was lucky in his gifts: charm, which included a knack for emotional escapology; artistic skill — he drew, painted and was an agile violinist; and above all verbal fluency. Has he been so lucky in terms of how what he left behind ‘stands up’?

He thought he could have made a career as a visual artist, if only more people had liked his work (there’s charm in that self-deprecating idea, too).