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As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning

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As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning

By: Laurie Lee
Narrated by: Laurie Lee
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning is the moving follow-up to Laurie Lee's acclaimed Cider with Rosie.

Abandoning the Cotswolds village that raised him, the young Laurie Lee walks to London. There he makes a living labouring and playing the violin. But, deciding to travel further a field and knowing only the Spanish phrase for 'Will you please give me a glass of water?', he heads for Spain. With just a blanket to sleep under and his trusty violin, he spends a year crossing Spain, from Vigo in the north to the southern coast. Only the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War puts an end to his extraordinary peregrinations....

©1969 Laurie Lee (P)2022 Penguin Audio Art & Literature Authors Heartfelt

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Critic reviews

"He writes like an angel and conveys the pride and vitality of the humblest Spanish life with unfailing sharpness, zest and humour." (Sunday Times)

"There's a formidable, instant charm in the writing that genuinely makes it difficult to put the book down." (New Statesman)

"A beautiful piece of writing." (Observer)
All stars
Most relevant
This has been my favourite book since I first read it at 15 years of age. To now be able to listen to it being read by the wonderful Laurie Lee is a real joy! Now on to A moment of war.

An absolute wonder!

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laurie Lee reads this as an old man the book he wrote when he was twenty , Its poetic and beautiful, sometimes very sad sometimes very funny

wonderfully descriptive

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I first read this book in 1981, as I travelled through Spain, visiting many of the places which Laurie Lee refers to. My travels were slightly more luxurious, camping, staying in cheap hostels, using a car and public transport. However, his writing brought these places alive for me, and at that stage, Spain seemed unchanged from the days when Laurie Lee did his travels. Laurie Lee communicates his love of the country in very simple and emotional terms. If this book does not inspire you with a love of Spain, nothing will.

Writing From The Heart

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I love all of the authors books. You can picture yourself in the countryside and towns

The description

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The first part of the book where the writer travels through the Uk on foot, reminded me of George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London, and how incredibly miserable the lives of “tramps" were, less than a century ago.
But the really fascinating part was his arrival in Spain, and the unbelievable primitiveness of the people and their lives. This was pre-civil war, so people were just waking up to the possibility of there being a better life and chance of prosperity.
The last quarter of the book is set in the coastal town of Castillo, which was his pseudonym for Almuñécar, which is in fact where I myself live. The sheer poverty that existed here is difficult to imagine now, but right at the time of experiencing this, the war broke out, and from the initial optimism that the Republican government would smash the Francoist rebels, it soon became apparent that this was not so. Just when the conflict is hotting up and the peasants and fishermen take up arms, Lee gets picked up by a British ship running the length of the coast to rescue stranded Brits.

I would have given the book a five stars if it wasn’t for the weird ending. I didn’t quite believe in his heroic return to Spain to join the International Brigades, and the book ended as he, ridiculously ill-equipped, crossed the snow capped Pyrenees on foot in a foolhardy search of comrades. Somehow it did not ring true.
Also, though it was kind of special that the author himself was the narrator and he was very good at it (but which usually I
think is a mistake), his elderly voice seemed somewhat incongruous. A young narrator should have fitted the story better.

On the whole I enjoyed the book immensely.

A reading “experience”

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