Synopsis "One Fine day (in English)"
A time-travelling, genealogical adventure, bringing pre-industrial, rural, eighteenth-century England vividly to life onthe page. One day Ian Marchant, acclaimed author of bookson music, railways and pubs, decided, as allmen of a certain age must, to have a dig around his family history.Surprisingly quickly, a web search informed him that his seven-times-greatgreat-grandfather, Thomas Marchant had left a detailed diary from 1714 to 1728.So far, so jolly ... Life-loving diarist Thom - who liked a drink and a game of cards - feelsrecognisably Marchant to Ian. With fascinating detail we learn about Thom'sfamily farm and fishponds; about dung, horses and mud; about beer, the wife'snights out, his own job troubles and their shared worries for their children.But as Ian digs deeper beyond the Sussex diary's bucolic portrait he discoversa subtext - a family descended from immigrants, with anti-establishmentpolitics, who are struggling with illness, political instability and cashcrises - just as their country does three centuries on. 'When I was reflecting late one January eveningon the differences between Thom and me, I realised the unbridgeable thing thatcomes between us is industrialisation. He lived right at its beginning, while Iam living somewhere towards its end. Old Thom Marchant was one of the lastpeople before industrialisation to understand how his world worked - and how tobe largely self-sufficient in it. He knew where his food came from, his fuel, his water, his clothes. He knew how the welfare system worked, and was part ofits administration; he knew who looked after the roads, too. He collectedtaxes. He was not separate from the system, but part of it.' Rich with immersive detail, One Fine Daydraws a living portrait of Marchant family life in the 1720s and how theirEngland (rainy, muddy, politically turbulent, illness-ridden) became theEngland of the 2020s.
