The Rambling Writer: a Literary Amble with Keith Rylands-Bolton
As winter draws to a close and brighter days beckon, we’re looking forward to our spring tours programme. If you had the chance to join us on our winter Snowdrop Walks, we thoroughly enjoyed meeting you. We’ve got some fresh and exciting experiences planned for the Lincolnshire Wolds Outdoor Festival in May and June, including a true Lincolnshire original: a literary walk based on a Wolds-inspired novel and accompanied by the author.
Set in the heart of the Lincolnshire Wolds, ‘Trying Times for Sebastian Scattergood’ is described by author Keith Rylands-Bolton as “a chronicle of a horrendous year, narrated by an earnest and pompous man who lacks any sense of self-irony.” It is “a novel of literary fiction which is both humorous and moving in equal measure….part disaster diary, part social satire.” Suitably intrigued, we caught up with Keith for a chat about rural inspiration, literary catharsis and a novel way to enjoy a novel.
“It’s not often you get a book so specific to a place,” said Keith. “We’re doing two walks drawn directly from the novel. The first involves Sebastian Scattergood and his wife, Jan, taking her brother and sister-in-law on a walk around South Ormsby Estate. The main focus is Sebastian’s disappointment at his in-laws’ lack of appreciation of the wildflowers in Furze Close and their boorish behaviour during lunch in the Massingberd Arms.
“The second walk is inspired by a far more involved episode. Sebastian and his wife walk from Furze Closes into Driby and then into Brinkhill. Straightaway, the group of friends he meets at the pub have come under the influence of Mad Malcolm and his Romanian wife, Catalina. They have been drinking and cause difficulties right from the start. Ultimately, it turns out that drunken shenanigans in the brick pit near Oven’s Plantation have led to serious injuries to the revellers – which leads to visits from the police and press and, ultimately, the first real sign that Sebastian’s reputation and his plans to create a Tennyson’s Tours company are doomed.
“I’m quite sure that my real South Ormsby tour groups will be as kind and amiable as one could wish. It’s not often that you get to tie a book this specifically to a place so it will be exciting. We’ll mostly be enjoying the countryside and I’ll be doing readings at specific locations.”
