Rose For Winter

Laurie Lee was born in Stroud, Gloucestershire, in 1914, and was educated at Slad village school and Stroud Central School. At the age on nineteen he walked to London and then travelled on foot through Spain, where he was trapped by the outbreak of the Civil War. He later returned by crossing the Pyrenees, as described in his book As I Walked Out one Midsummer Morning. In 1950 he married Catherine Polge and they had one daughter. Laurie Lee died in May 1997. In its obituary the Guardian wrote, 'He has a nightingale inside him, a capacity for sensuous, lyrical precisions'.

"He has a nightingale inside him, a capacity for sensuous, lyrical precision" Guardian "One of the great writers of the last century whose work conjured up a world of earthly warmth and beauty" Independent "Out of a winter in Southern Spain, Mr Lee has spun a magnificent book, outstanding even in a field where the competition is oppressively brilliant'" New Statesman