Kilvert's Diary

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Kilvert was an enthusiast for public bathing in the nude, which he regarded as natural and healthy. [4] The first entry in Kilvert's diaries in which he records his naked bathing was for 4 September 1872, at Weston-super-Mare. He writes: "Bathing in the morning before breakfast from a machine. Many people were openly stripping on the sands a little further on and running down into the sea and I would have done the same but I had brought down no towels of my own". However, next day Kilvert joins in the fun: "I was out early before breakfast this morning bathing from the sands. There was a delicious feeling of freedom in stripping in the open air and running down naked to the sea where the waves were curling white with foam and the red morning sunshine glowing upon the naked limbs of the bathers". [5] [6] Relationships with girls [ edit ]

Walking the Welsh Marches with a Victorian clergyman Walking the Welsh Marches with a Victorian clergyman

As his book, Kilvert’s Diary, attests, Clyro (or ‘Cleirwy’ in Welsh) is a fine starting point. Stroll a mile south and you hit the beautiful Wye river, William Wordsworth’s “wanderer through the woods”, whose gentle banks lead upstream along the Wye valley walk. Downstream, you’re on Offa’s Dyke, chasing the Mercian king on a crisscrossing journey through the Welsh Marches. However, there was one type of individual, increasingly common with the spread of the railway network across Britain, who aroused his dismay and whom he treated with contempt - and that was the tourist. Bennett, Alan (2007). The Uncommon Reader. London: Faber and Faber and Profile Books. ISBN 978-1-84668-049-6.

Despite Kilvert's niece's actions she ironically was a Vice-President, and an avid member of the Kilvert Society for many years up until her death in 1964. The diary runs from January 1870 until just before his death on 23 September 1879. We believe the diary filled about twenty-nine notebooks. Mrs Kilvert removed all the notebooks from 9 September 1875 to 1 March 1876 and 27 June 1876 to 31 December 1877, we believe for personal reasons. She removed all mention of herself. On Mrs Kilvert’s death in 1911 the remaining twenty-two notebooks were passed to Kilvert’s sister Dora Pitcairn who in turn left them to her niece Frances Essex Hope, n ée Smith. Additionally, members benefit from a twice-yearly journal and mid-year newsletter. These are full of articles that expand on diary entries with information about the people, places, and events that Kilvert recorded. But the diary is not just a mine of social history and folklore: what comes across is Kilvert’s human heart, deeply concerned for the well-being of his poorer parishioners and doing what he could to relieve the loneliness, squalor, and hunger that he witnessed. Kilvert’s attempts to write poetry are self-consciously artistic. His diaries, by contrast, often achieve poetic resonance artlessly in their descriptions of people, events, and the landscapes he loved.

Life on the wing | Books | The Guardian Life on the wing | Books | The Guardian

It was during this period that he began courting Elizabeth Rowland. Unlike Ettie, with her "true gypsy beauty", the future Mrs Kilvert was rather plain, but her charitable interests made her perfect for a vicar's wife. She remained devoted to Kilvert's memory, and never remarried. On her death in 1911, she was buried in Bredwardine churchyard at some distance from her late husband. Separated in life, the couple were not even destined to lie together in death. The plot next to Kilvert, intended for her, was taken by a pair of spinster sisters. Several modern writers have commented on passages in the diaries describing interactions with young girls which these days might raise suspicions of paedophilia. [7] [8] [9] However, poet John Betjeman was among those who have since defended Kilvert, saying, "If there had been anything sinister in his attentions to them, he would hardly have written so candidly in his diary about his feelings". [ citation needed] Modern adaptations [ edit ]Further along, on the other side of the main road, is the village school where Kilvert taught the parish children their three R’s, and where he fell for the charms of ten-year-old ‘Gipsy Lizzie’. Even today, though, the sparsely populated nature of the region means that one is still more likely to encounter sheep than people. And the countryside, quiet hamlets and remote churches of a low, squat design that Kilvert knew have changed so little and retain much of their former character.