Ahh Sophie, another gem of a story from you. Loved this full of veiled threat and foreboding. I am sort of familiar with Dorridge as I am with lots of Midlands towns and villages having travelled a lot during my later working life looking for ways to circumnavigate around the various motorways .
I haven't read this book but am interested in people's views who have to see what they think.
An interesting article about Wyndham and the asylum, but I felt that in many ways it said more about the writer's unease in a quiet village than it did about the inspiration for The Midwich Cuckoos. Of course people are going to turn and look at you if you walk into a theatre performance that has already started; of course bar staff are going to be concerned if you wave voice recorders around in a pub: it doesn't mean that they're about to re-enact The Wicker Man!
Later on there is a mention of Shardlow, which I would have thought a much more likely inspiration: it remains isolated even today in the Derbyshire countryside. But I would have thought that most of the story comes from that unvisitable place: Wyndham's imagination.
Really interesting, I didn't know John Wyndham was from Dorridge.
Ahh Sophie, another gem of a story from you. Loved this full of veiled threat and foreboding. I am sort of familiar with Dorridge as I am with lots of Midlands towns and villages having travelled a lot during my later working life looking for ways to circumnavigate around the various motorways .
I haven't read this book but am interested in people's views who have to see what they think.
An interesting article about Wyndham and the asylum, but I felt that in many ways it said more about the writer's unease in a quiet village than it did about the inspiration for The Midwich Cuckoos. Of course people are going to turn and look at you if you walk into a theatre performance that has already started; of course bar staff are going to be concerned if you wave voice recorders around in a pub: it doesn't mean that they're about to re-enact The Wicker Man!
Later on there is a mention of Shardlow, which I would have thought a much more likely inspiration: it remains isolated even today in the Derbyshire countryside. But I would have thought that most of the story comes from that unvisitable place: Wyndham's imagination.
Kraken!
Really enjoyed Wyndham article- his books were the first of the genre that I read and I read all of his with The Keaken Wakes my favourite