Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

Secrets of Candleford: the real Flora Thompson

A review of Dreams of the Good Life, by Richard Mabey. The author of Lark Rise has been ill served by dirt-diggers. This biography is better

[Getty Images/Shutterstock/iStock/Alamy]
When Richard Mabey was researching this biography of Flora Thompson, author of Lark Rise to Candleford, he happened to stay at a farmhouse B&B near Bath. Ambling around, he found

something very curious … There were two rows of cottages facing each other, with a dusty track between them …There were clean curtains in the windows.

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