5 April

You can find clues to the loss of the connection between us and the landscape, in interesting places. Like in this excerpt from Agatha Christie's A Murder is Announced. Pre-world wars, a location was tightly tied to the people living there, in turn tightly connected to each other. 'Roots'. "The English village has changed since before the war. It's really because the whole world has changed...It may look the same - simple, and peaceful, and eternal. But it isn't. You see in the old days, everyone knew each other. If someone new came to the village, then they brought letters of introduction. They'd either been in the same regiment, or the same colony as some already living in the village, you see. Gone forever, I suspect...the big houses are sold, the cottages converted, and people simply come in from anywhere...made a little money and able to retire. No letters of introduction, no roots. You have to believe their stories and take them at their face value."