{"product_id":"9781908213709","title":"Copsford by Walter J.C. Murray","description":"Walter Murray was a young man tired of living in the city. Early in the 1920s, he persuaded a Sussex farmer to rent him a derelict cottage, which stood alone on a hill, with no running water or electricity. Most of the windows were broken, it was dirty, dark and ran with rats.  He bought a brush and pail in the village, forced the rats to retreat, brought in rudimentary furniture. The local postman found him a dog, and with his new companion he began to explore his surroundings. In that year at Copsford he made a living from collecting, drying and selling the herbs he found locally: agrimony, meadow-sweet and  yarrow. He became alert to the wildlife and plants around him. His life was hard - he supplemented his income with occasional journalism, but it was here he met his future wife, who he calls The Music Mistress, and with whom he would later found a school.    Copsford is an extraordinary book. Bearing comparison to Thoreau's Walden, Murray's intense feeling for his place is evident on every page. It is, though, no simple story of a rural idyll - life at Copsford was hard, and Murray does not shy away from the occasional terrors of a house that had its hauntings.  A publishing success when first published in the late 1940s, this new edition has an introduction by Raynor Winn, author of The Salt Path.\u003cbr\u003eBinding: Paperback \/ softback","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43205806915762,"sku":"9781908213709","price":14.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/products\/9781908213709.jpg?v=1705410473","url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/products\/9781908213709","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}