Angela Thirkell

     Angela Thirkell (photo: Angela Thirkell Society)

It was the day a literary hero returned to Totley - when a million selling authoress once again walked these peaceful streets, smelt that Derbyshire air, supped that Cross Scythes ale.

This was the second visit of the national Angela Thirkell Society, a group committed to the memory of novelist Angela Thirkell, a Totley resident from 1919-20, who went on to become the Jane Austen/Barbara Cartland (depending upon your point of view) of her age.

Regular Independent readers amongst you will recall the appreciative letter from the Wirral branch of the society after their first visit (Issue 92, see below). They were, wrote member Paddy Hancock "anxious to see the moorland village the Thirkells had enjoyed living in" and so to "gaze upon the actual house where they had lodged". That house was traced by Brian Edwards to Sunnybank in Totley Bents, which one of Angela's sons recalled blissfully as being the starting point for picnics spent high above the trains thundering through Totley Tunnel.

Sunnybank, Lane Head Road, Totley Bents

The real Angela Thirkell went on to write some 30 novels which sold around the world and which have recived an unexpected new lease of life through the current resurgence of the work of another son, Colin MacInnes, author of Absolute Beginners.

Members of the Angela Thirkell Society were surprised on their return to Totley to meet up with the writer's namesake, this writer's wife, Angela Thirkell, a journalist with the Rotherham Advertiser. That the Angela Thirkell who died 25 years ago has been described as reactionary and snobbish in the extreme, and the Angela Thirkell they met in 1986 has been described as a revolutionary socialist, seemed to cause them little concern.

It probably would have caused the dissolute and now deceased MacInnes a sly giggle - he hated his mother's work and she dutifully deplored his. (He came to Totley as a four year old).

The Angela Thirkell Society returned to the village for the dual purpose of trying to uncover more about the life and times of their heroine and also for the sheer good time they assured us Totley can bring. "It's a delightful place" was the common opinion - and everyone agreed to bring their husbands along on the next visit in just a few months.

The life of Angela Thirkell is not one Totley has ever made great boast of - but with the free publicity afforded by the hype surrounding MacInnes and the Absolute Beginners film, the local literary map is becoming just a little bit richer.

Thirkell's novels of Edwardian upper-crust life, the comedy of country house life, are said to be undergoing a resurgence which could bring a fair few more visitors to these parts. Two of her novels have been reissued in paperback and the old hardbacks can still be found in secondhand shops. Try them - if you're not a revolutionary socialist you may enjoy them!

Geoff Kemp

July 1986

Letter to Totley Independent, February 1986

Dear Sir

One phrase is a lasting memory of Totley (rather like "Gruss Gott", when one walks through the Tyrol). Everyone seemed to be asking everyone else this burning question about the coming Fell Race. Well, no, we were not "running next Saturday" - but we certainly walked that Saturday!

On July 6th, members of the Wirral Branch of the Angela Thirkell Society made a "pilgrimage" to Totley. Mrs. Thirkell, grand-daughter of Victorian artist Burne-Jones, cousin to Rudyard Kipling and Stanley Baldwin, and with many other literary and artistic connections, was a best-selling novelist from the 30s to the early 60s. In 1919, she and her husband, George Thirkell, plus her two sons by a previous marriage, lived in Totley for nearly a year, while George worked for an engineering firm in Sheffield. So here we are, anxious to see the moorland village the Thirkells had enjoyed living in, and if possible, to gaze on the actual house where they had "lodged".

I had previously been in touch with Brian Edwards, (after reading his book Drawings of Historic Totley) and he had kindly offered to take us on a tour of Totley and district. He proved to be a super guide! What a lot we learned in just one walk - all about the beginnings of Sheffield's industry - all about Totley Tunnel, (I hate to admit that we had all travelled through it at one time or another, and never noticed its name - but now we realise how much the building of the tunnel is part of local history).

We heard many a Totley Tale about ancient buildings and interesting characters and entertaining events - all this whilst enjoying the brisk, invigorating air, the grand sweep of the hills against the pale-blue sky, the well-wooded little valleys with their clear clean streamlets (though we never did see a trout), the coloured patchwork of fields "over yonder" and wild flowers everywhere, foxgloves and yellow loosestrife and meadow sweet.

How we enjoyed looking at the lovely grey stone buildings - all so trim and neat, and so well looked after. How we envied the old-fashioned cottage gardens, and relished walking along a real country lane, with its own brook trickling along the side. Every turn revealed another agreeable rustic view, or called for another fascinating anecdote from our intrepid guide!

We were intrigued by the names we walked along, "Strawberry Lee Lane" - sounds like an old English folk tune; "Penny Lane" (not a bit like Liverpool); and "Totley Bents". And here at last was THE house! We lined up for our photograph outside the gate, and tried to imagine what it had looked like 65 years ago, when the Thirkells lived here, and the two boys played on the old "tunnel tips".

Back to the village, and what better day to choose for our visit that the Saturday of the School Summer Fete and a village cricket match. We began to feel it had all been laid on for our benefit - everything was just perfect. Even the weather was benign, after a rather doubtful start. So we boarded our bus at the Cross Scythes, at the start of our journey back to the Wirral. "What a mravellous time we've had" - we all agreed; "we must go back to Totley some day".

So thank you, Brian - and Belle - for a really grand "day out"

Paddy Hancock

"The Wirral Wanderers"