Review: Voices of the Lake District, by Jayne Renouf and Rob David (From Lancashire Telegraph)

Review: Voices of the Lake District, by Jayne Renouf and Rob David

4:39pm Tuesday 17th May 2011 in Book reviews By Helen Perkins, Reporter

VOICES OF THE LAKE DISTRICT: Jayne Renouf and Rob David, The History Press, £12.99
BRITISH author Leslie Hartley famously wrote that ‘the past is a foreign country; they do things differently there’.

This book makes that abundantly clear.

It features Ambleside Oral History Group’s interviews with local people - quarrymen, farmers, scientists, artists and others.

There are humorous tales, but equally, there are harrowing cases of families where parents were too poor to send youngsters to school and one of five children who died of diphtheria.

The words come straight from recorded interviews.

You can almost hear them speaking from across the decades.