Annie Clay review The Running Hare by John Lewis-Stempel, published in hardback by Doubleday at £14.99.

JOHN Lewis-Stempel – author of the 2015 Wainwright prize winning Meadowland – returns to nature writing with The Running Hare, a chronicle of his journey to ‘take a modern, conventionally farmed arable field, plough it, and husband it in the old-fashioned chemical-free way, and make it into a traditional wheatfield.’ The author writes in a conversational tone, the book reading as a selection of informal diary entries. His quest is to revive a vision of a lost British countryside, to ‘bring back the flowers that have all but disappeared from British ploughlands… and the birds and animals that loved such land.’

Initially, Lewis-Stempel experiences setbacks. He struggles to find anyone willing to let him have a field in which to sow wildflowers. The flowers are perceived as weeds, which ‘might contaminate our crop.’ He eventually acquires fifteen acres on a two-year farm business tenancy. Four acres of this arable land, a field named Flinders, is allowed to contain wildflowers for only the first year of his tenancy. Despite these restrictions, Lewis-Stempel perseveres, carrying with him the notion that he is ‘mending the broken heart’ of the field throughout the changing seasons.

His experiences at Flinders are interwoven with abundant historical information and comparisons, from the farming practices of the ancient Egyptians through to those of medieval peasants. Lewis-Stempel describes the traditions of the farmers before him; for example, that sexual abstinence was practiced from Advent to Candlemas (February 2nd) to ensure no heavy pregnancies during harvest time. Popular myths are also dispelled, including the supposedly long tradition of the ‘Ploughman’s Lunch’. Such a meal disappointingly originates from the 1950s – invented by the Cheese Bureau in order to increase sales of cheese.

Lewis-Stempel is certainly no admirer of modern farming practices, particularly the application of chemical herbicides and pesticides. Yet his commitment to historical methods only goes so far. When his wife suggests that he use the traditional ploughman’s way of testing whether the ground is warm enough to sow (dropping one’s trousers and sitting bare-bottomed on the ground), he – perhaps understandably – opts for a thermometer.

The popularity of nature writing has increased hugely in recent years. Authors must therefore go above and beyond to stand out from competing publications and Lewis-Stempel achieves this through his use of eloquent and poetic language. Turn to any page and you will find a sentence that makes you stop and reconsider common sights of the countryside; the Malvern Hills are described as ‘those dinosaur-spine eruptions into the cultivated English Eden,’ a newborn lamb stands on its ‘preposterous stilts,’ and bees flying from flower to flower ‘sew the summer scene together’.

As the harvest is gathered and his tenancy ends, the author takes heart from the knowledge that hares continue to inhabit Flinders field. The Running Hare is an unusual, often beautiful combination of autobiography, historical titbits and observations of wildlife and nature, and the animals of Flinders field are brought to life by Lewis-Stempel’s lively accounts of their appearance and behaviours. A love of nature is evident both in the author’s writing and in the classic works of literature referenced throughout the book; when we consider this ancestry alongside Lewis-Stempel’s latest contribution to the genre, it seems that nature writing will continue to hold a significant role in our literature and culture.