The Fallow Land by H.E. Bates

Saturday-Night Theatre
Sat 14th Jul 1973, 20:30 on BBC Radio 4 FM
The Fallow Land: the novel by H.E. Bates, adapted for radio by David H. Godfrey.

’It's always been the same-always has been and always will be. If you're not master of the land, the land will be master of you. Nothing's so sure as that.'
Producer: David H. Godfrey

Fairground attendant: William Eedli
Jess Mortimer: Geoffrey Matthews
Deborah: Denise Bryer
Mrs Arbuthnot: Joan Sanderson
Mr Mortimer: Charles Simon
Mrs Mortimer: Kathleen Helme
Alma Wolstenholm: Jane Knowles
David as child: Olwen Griffiths
Benjamin as child: Sandra Clark
Dr Starling: Peter Williams
Sophie Sharman: Gretta Gouriet David as man:
John Forrest Benjamin as man: David Valla
Mr Twelvetree: Brian Halnes
Mrs Twelvetree: Hilda Schroder
Anthea Twelvetree: Julie Hallam
Government Official: Anthony Hall
Ada: Sandra Clark

The Fallow Land was the author’s fourth novel, his first set in the English Midlands around about the time of the first World War. It is a sort of historical novel about a rural world which has long since disappeared, and is not written today. It was to some degree inspired by Bates’s childhood memories of his grandfather Lucas and it is said that it is a least partly the old man’s story. It concerns the struggle of three generations of a farming family in the Nene Valley –most notably the unfortunate Deborah Loveday. Deborah marries Jess Mortimer, who soon leaves her to embark on a life of dissipation, while she remains to work the farm with Mortimer’s old man, a task to which she devotes herself throuhgout the rest of her life with passion and courage, while bringing up troubled sons Benjamin and David. The novel was highly praised at the time of its publication, and the pity is that it is probably largely forgotten today, and it is unlikely to be in print. [goodreads]