Wingfield's World: The Complete Letters from Wingfield Farm - Softcover

Needles, Dan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0307360849 ISBN 13: 9780307360847

Verlag: Random House of Canada, 2011

Inhaltsangabe

Walt Wingfield, the character beloved by thousands in every part of the country, is back with a new and complete book, with a new introduction from the author.
 
Walt Wingfield is a Bay Street stockbroker who quits his job and buys a hundred-acre farm in Persephone Township, Ontario. In a series of letters to the editor of the local newspaper, Walt chronicles his modest successes and spectacular defeats in an age when farming has become difficult for farmers old and new. Dan Needles' rich and charming rural neighbourhood may be difficult to find on a map but it is very close to the Canadian soul.
 
Including a new introduction from Dan Needles, the writer who brought this marvellous world to life 27 years ago, and all your favourite mishaps, triumphs and eccentric neighbours Wingfield's World is the full story of one man's attempt to embrace a less complicated world and how he ends up with more complication and drama, and more love and richness than he could have imagined.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

DAN NEEDLES is the creator of the popular Wingfield Farm plays, full-length stage comedies that have filled theatres across Canada and the United States for more than 4,000 performances since 1984. He lives with his wife, Heath, on a small farm near Collingwood, Ontario

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

There’s a lot to read in a weekly newspaper. At first bounce, you wouldn’t think there was anything much to say about a town like Larkspur. And yet my staff and I manage to squeeze ten thousand words a week into every issue of the Free Press and Economist. Forty thousand words a month. About eight fair-sized novels every year, I guess.
 
Of course, you couldn’t find anyone to publish novels like this. That’s because we’re dealing with the public side of life in the community; only those sanded and polished and varnished facts that can be printed safely without leading to anything more controversial than a brick through the front office window. Nothing is said about the darker side of Larkspur life . . . although we look hopefully every week in the police report. No. You have to go to the city papers for the juicy stuff. Nowhere in this slag-heap of words will you find the Larkspur resident unclothed, so to speak . . . although I see the Turnip Festival Queen sure made a stab at it this week.
 
The closest we come, I suppose, would be Walt Wingfield and his Letters from Wingfield Farm. Generally speaking, if you asked my advice on how to run a weekly newspaper I’d say avoid unsolicited contributions. Every crackpot within fifteen miles wants to get something in the paper. But in my case, some of my best material came to me just that way. Walt Wingfield is an ex–chairman-of-the-board–turned– farmer. He used to be chairman and chief executive officer of MacFeeters, Bartlett and Hendrie . . . the big brokerage house down on Bay Street. Well, one day about a year ago, he gave up his six-figure income and bought a hundred acre farm out on the Seventh Concession of Persephone Township. He said he wanted to make a stand, to simplify his life.
 
He’d taken on a tough job. If you look at a climate-and soil map for this part of Southern Ontario you’ll see a small circular zone marked “4a.” That is Persephone Township. “Pursefoan” in the native dialect. It enjoys the same climate and growing conditions as Churchill, Manitoba. It is a land of sand hills, cedar swamp, feldspar outcroppings and about half an inch of topsoil.
 
The day he arrived in town, Walt stopped by the office to buy a subscription and we had a chat. I could see what he was doing was very important to him. He wanted more of an audience than just his ducks and chickens. He suggested my readers might be interested in a weekly progress report. I listened to him, without telling him yes or no, because I wanted to think about it. He didn’t press me for an answer, which surprised me because you know how city people always want to know everything right now.
 
Then, one day about a week later, I was clearing up at the back after we’d closed and I looked up to see Walt pushing an envelope through the mail-slot. The transformation was remarkable. Gone was the three-piece pin-striped suit and in its place was the “After Dawn” look by Co-op: blue denim bib overalls, a Korean tartan flannelette shirt, brand-new work boots and a green forage hat.
 
I opened the envelope and found a letter that turned out to be the first in a series of missives that now form a kind of farm diary for Walt’s first year out on the Seventh Concession.


April 21
Dear Ed,
I was delighted to meet you on my first day in Larkspur last week and I enjoyed our chat thoroughly. You may remember my telling you I’ve taken over the old Fisher place at R.R. #1, Larkspur, on the Seventh Concession. I’ve taken a leave of absence from my firm in Toronto in order to try this experiment in farming, which has long been on my mind.
 
At my age there isn’t really much time left for a man to explore some of the things he might have done or been. I’ve enjoyed some success in the world of finance, for which I’m grateful, but, still, I have a deep and unswerving conviction that a man may pursue his life and satisfy his wants with far less brouhaha than I have experienced so far. Persephone Township is the place to prove it.
 
The Fishers had their auction last Saturday. I watched as the neighbourhood descended on the place and picked it clean. After it was over, and the Fishers had driven off to their new place in town, the auctioneer walked over the property with me. His name is Freddy. He’s an interesting chap, friendly and outgoing, and seems to be well-regarded as an auctioneer despite a very noticeable stammer, which brings his sales to a complete halt from time to time. He runs a beef and dairy operation on the farm next door; plants corn, grain, potatoes, turnips; does auction sales, some blacksmithing, small auto repairs and real estate. It’s what I believe is called mixed farming. As we walked, Freddy and I talked about the farm and my plans for the summer. Although the sun is warm and some green is starting to show through the dead grass, the ground is still spongy, muddy and wet. We stopped beside an old haywagon parked out behind the barn.
 
“That’ll come in handy,” I said.
 
Freddy pushed his eyebrows up and stared at the sky.
 
“Well, now, Walt, maybe I should have mentioned this before, b-b-but I lent that wagon to old Fisher last summer. You’re welcome to the loan of it, if you like.”
 
We walked on.
 
“What’s this? A perfectly serviceable old hay-rake. I’m glad that wasn’t sold at the auction.”
 
“Well, now, there again, Walt, that belongs to The Squire across the road. I asked him to take it away before the auction b-b-but. . . .”
 
I explained that the first thing I was going to need was some cedar posts for a fence.
 
“By golly, Walt, old Fisher bought some cedar posts off me last fall and n-n-never picked them up. I guess they belong to you now.”
 
“Is there anything else of mine in the neighbourhood?” I asked.
 
Over the next couple of days I lost the hay-wagon and the rake but I had returned to me: fifty cedar posts, a cream separator, a cultivator, a set of harrows, five bags of cement, a load of corn and a horse. The horse is a mare named Dolly or something, but I have named her Feedbin since that is where she can most often be found. She’s a spirited creature and seems to have been a racehorse at some time or other, because she can turn only to the left. Consequently, I make a perfect spectacle of myself, riding into Larkspur. Freddy has been no help at all about this.
 
“You’ll get used to her,” was all he could offer. “Besides, you’re not going to be using her much!”
 
That is where he is wrong, for I propose to teach this horse to pull a plough. As I explained to Freddy, when you drive loud machinery, you miss a great deal of what nature has to offer. You can’t hear the rich pageantry of life in the hedgerows if you insist on riding around the fields on a noisy tractor. Of course, Freddy couldn’t understand this. But he has been extremely helpful none the less. He put out the word and now all the old horse-drawn implements on the Seventh Concession have been pulled out of driving sheds and left in a pile at my gate. With a few small repairs they’ll be as good as new.
 
I’m not fooling around here. I’ve never been more serious in my life. I propose to be as good at this farming game as my neighbours, but, at the same time, I plan to preserve some of the old ways. It won’t happen overnight, but eventually, the neighbourhood will come to think of me in much the same light as Montaigne and Thoreau were thought of in their...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Random House of Canada
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2011
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0307360849
• ISBN 13: 9780307360847
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 448
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar