Description

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A time-travelling, genealogical adventure,
bringing pre-industrial, rural, eighteenth-century England vividly to life on
the page.

One day Ian Marchant, acclaimed author of books
on music, railways and pubs, decided, as all
men of a certain age must, to have a dig around his family history.
Surprisingly quickly, a web search informed him that his seven-times-great
great-grandfather, Thomas Marchant had left a detailed diary from 1714 to 1728.
So far, so jolly ...

Life-loving diarist Thom - who liked a drink and a game of cards - feels
recognisably Marchant to Ian. With fascinating detail we learn about Thom's
family farm and fishponds; about dung, horses and mud; about beer, the wife's
nights out, his own job troubles and their shared worries for their children.
But as Ian digs deeper beyond the Sussex diary's bucolic portrait he discovers
a subtext - a family descended from immigrants, with anti-establishment
politics, who are struggling with illness, political instability and cash
crises - just as their country does three centuries on.

'When I was reflecting late one January evening
on the differences between Thom and me, I realised the unbridgeable thing that
comes between us is industrialisation. He lived right at its beginning, while I
am living somewhere towards its end. Old Thom Marchant was one of the last
people before industrialisation to understand how his world worked - and how to
be largely self-sufficient in it. He knew where his food came from, his fuel,
his water, his clothes. He knew how the welfare system worked, and was part of
its administration; he knew who looked after the roads, too. He collected
taxes. He was not separate from the system, but part of it.'

Rich with immersive detail, One Fine Day
draws a living portrait of Marchant family life in the 1720s and how their
England (rainy, muddy, politically turbulent, illness-ridden) became the
England of the 2020s.

About the Author

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Ian Marchant has worked fortwenty-five years as a writer, broadcaster and performer. His non-fiction booksinclude Parallel Lines, The Longest Crawl and A Hero for HighTimes, which was long-listed for the Gordon Burn Prize. Ian has presentednumerous broadcasts for Radio 3 and Radio 4, in particular on psycho-geographyand contemporary rural affairs. He is an intermittent presenter on Radio 4'slong-running Open Country, and a regular diarist for the Church Times.He has written for the Guardian, the Observer, the DailyTelegraph and the Sunday Times. He has made numerous appearances asa guest speaker, compere, quizmaster and lounge singer, and is also a creativewriting tutor and guest speaker for the Arvon Foundation. He lives inPresteigne with his family.