One Fine Day

A time-travelling, genealogical adventure, bringing pre-industrial, rural, eighteenth-century England vividly to life on the page. One day Ian Marchant decided, as all men of a certain age must, to have a dig around his family history. Surprisingly quickly, a web search informed him that his seven-times-great great-grandfather, Thomas Marchant, had left a detailed diary from 1714 to 1728. Diarist Thom �_" who liked a drink and a game of cards �_" feels recognisably Marchant to Ian. With immersive detail we learn about Thom�_Ts family farm and fishponds; about dung, horses and mud; about beer, the wife�_Ts nights out, his own job troubles and their shared worries for their children. But as Ian digs deeper beyond the Sussex diary�_Ts bucolic portrait he discovers a subtext �_" a family descended from immigrants, with anti-establishment politics, who are struggling with illness, political instability and cash crises �_" just as their country does three centuries on. �_~A unique and exhilarating exploration of time and love �_� elegiac, consistently funny, deeply moving.�_TRichard Beard, author of Sad Little Men