20 Facts About Ronald Blythe

Ronald Blythe wrote a long-running and considerably praised weekly column in the Church Times entitled "Word from Wormingford".

Ronald Blythe's London-born mother, Matilda, had worked as a Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse during the war and passed on to her son her passion for books.

Ronald Blythe could remember as a child seeing the sugar beet being farmed by men in army greatcoats and puttees.

Ronald Blythe was educated at St Peter's and St Gregory's school in Sudbury, Suffolk, and grew up exploring churches, architecture, plants and books.

Ronald Blythe left school at 14 but was, he said, "a chronic reader", immersing himself in French literature and writing poetry.

Ronald Blythe introduced Blythe to her husband, the artist John Nash, inviting him to their house, Bottengoms Farm, near Wormingford on the border of Essex and Suffolk, which he first visited in 1947.

Ronald Blythe later encouraged his ambitions to be a writer, finding him a small house on the Suffolk coast near Aldeburgh.

Ronald Blythe lived briefly at Aldeburgh on the Suffolk coast before moving to Debach.

In 1960 Ronald Blythe published his first book, A Treasonable Growth, a novel set in the Suffolk countryside.

In 1977 Ronald Blythe inherited Bottengoms Farm from Nash, who had bought the Elizabethan yeoman's house in 1944.

Ronald Blythe later published a book, First Friends, based on, and quoting from, a trunk of letters he found in the house that recorded the friendship between the Nash brothers, John's future wife, Christine Kulenthal, and the artist Dora Carrington.

Ronald Blythe continued to live and work at Bottengoms Farm in Wormingford until his death, following the opinion expressed in The View in Winter that the elderly should remain in their own homes whenever possible.

Ronald Blythe never learned to drive and did not use a computer.

Ronald Blythe turned 100 on 6 November 2022 and died at his home just over two months later, on 14 January 2023.

Ronald Blythe bequeathed his farmhouse, Bottengoms, to the Essex Wildlife Trust, which intends to use it as a conservation site, as well as a centre for education and art.

Ronald Blythe was a lay reader in the Church of England and a lay canon at St Edmundsbury Cathedral in Bury St Edmunds.

Ronald Blythe was a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature from 1970 and was president of the John Clare Society from its foundation.

Ronald Blythe's book, At Helpston, is a series of essays on the poet John Clare.

In 2006 Ronald Blythe was awarded a Benson Medal for lifelong achievement by the Royal Society of Literature, and in 2015 he received an honorary degree from the University of Suffolk.

Ronald Blythe was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2017 Birthday Honours for services to literature.