By Ted Sherrell

THE evocative title of Jane Nancarrow’s latest novel comes from lines penned by that great poet, and lover of all things Cornish, John Betjeman; ‘The emptying train, wind in the ventilators, puffs out of Egloskerry to Tresmeer, through minty meadows.’

If these lines paint pictures in the mind then the author’s insightful imaginative writing illuminates them most vividly; for rural Cornwall of the late 19th century, its way of life, proper, problems, culture, outlook jump from the pages, providing both enjoyable and mind concentrating reading, Ms Nancarrow, based in Launceston, has a name which suggests her roots lie deep in the rich soil of the Duchy; such a background influences, clearly, her writing.

For she has a feel for, and an understanding of, the unique character of Britain’s most southerly county — which includes not just the present day, but past centuries.

The 19th century is the era in which this powerful tale is set (as has been her earlier publications) and, as in them, she weaves, deftly, her story in and around a changing world, illustrating classes between old and new — the traditional and the, at times, almost revolutionary.

The old poet laureate lines provide a massive clue as to the events leading to the conflict encompassed within the book, plus its location. Set in the late 1880s in the North Cornwall parish of Egloskerry, it relates in riveting fashion the sweeping changes brought to peaceful, traditional, West Country rural life and ways by the coming of the railways — as pertinent to the changing of outlook and structure of society as has been the digital explosion of our past quarter century. This is, though, the backdrop to the narrative, as it is basically a love story.

The central character is local village girl, Mary Jane, whose rather tranquil, reasonably predictable life is disrupted, transformed, even menaced when navies and others descend on the area to lay the railroad. What follows is much turbulance, violence, alarm, for local folk but, also, the arrival of a more progressive world — the creation of a way of life which, ultimately, would bring benefits to most folk.

It is this tempestuous movement into the unknown which is captured in astute fashion by Ms Nancarrow, she articulates it via the traumas and joys which assail Mary Jane — and her valiant defying of so many of the former.

This novel — throughout its 200, plus, pages — grips early and never lets go. This author has welded together an absorbing plot with convincingly believable characterisation — a union enhanced by the quality of her sparkling prose.