The Story of the Village - Agnes Allen

While on holiday, John and Margaret find out something about the village in the downs where they are staying. How did Idingford come to be as it is, and what sort of people first settled in this spot, and why? The two young people’s luck is in, for when they put their questions to Mr Morrison, a history master who lives in Idingford and knows just about all there is to know about it, it turns out that he has a marvellous way of telling a story – so marvellous that they are actually transported to the Idingford of about four thousand years ago, and return in time for tea. Then, on their daily expeditions with him, they meet and talk with the inhabitants at different periods, get to know their buildings, implements, clothes and their methods of farming, share their triumphs and disasters. In this way the whole story of the village, up to the present day, is unfolded.

What an enthralling story it is! – a sort of juvenile social history if by that you mean a history which tells you the things you really want to know, and doesn’t bother our head with the rest – but it reads like a story. In other Idingfords, other Margarets and Johns will be reconstructing the past from the evidence of their own eyes – and with the unfailing help of Mr Morrison.