Where Are the Fellows Who Cut the Hay?: How Traditions From the Past Can Shape Our Future

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LONGLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE 2024

'Essential reading for anybody who wants to understand rural life' Patrick Galbraith, author of In Search of One Last Song

'This is a book of life and why we should celebrate our roots before it is too late' John Connell, author of The Cow Book

Where Are the Fellows Who Cut the Hay? is an ode to rural life, charting traditions of the past, how they were lost and why we need to reconnect.

Exploring the relationship between everyday items and the communities that make them, Robert Ashton provides a snapshot of twenty-first century England. Where are the people who grow barley, milk cows and produce wool? How have their farming methods become less ethical, sustainable and natural over time? And what are we doing today to reverse that change?

Inspired by George Ewart Evans’s Ask the Fellows Who Cut the Hay, Ashton gives voice to local people and travels rural Suffolk in search for innovation, interweaving his own personal connection to Evans and to the land. Part memoir, part social history, Ashton’s thought-provoking book is a manifesto for why, against all odds, we need to step back in order to progress.