Authors Electric

I can’t remember now how many years ago it was when I first read Stella Gibbons’ Cold Comfort Farm, but I do remember the delight I felt in the cast of comical grotesques and the mad inventiveness of the wonky cows, the sukebind, the whatever-it-was in the woodshed that Aunt Ada Doom saw, that ‘something nasty’ that sealed all their fates.   My husband shared my enjoyment of the book but sailed a bit close to the wind when he christened my parent’s smallholding, which was indeed in deepest, darkest Sussex, Cold Comfort Farm. We’re still married and I am still inclined to mutter, on occasions when I’ve achieved something I alone find praiseworthy, ‘I ha’scranletted the bottom acre.’ I once sent a copy to a friend who was in need of cheering up and she phoned to say that at first she hadn’t realised it was satirical and wondered what on earth I had sent it for. I was reminded of the business of ‘not getting it’ recently by Bill Kirton’s humourless and dopey reviewer ...