D PETROL PUMPS IN GREAT MISSENDEN, AS REFERENCED IN ROALD DAHL'S DANNY, CHAMPION OF THE WORLD
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HEROES
id you write a book during lockdown? Or perhaps World Poetry Day on 21 March is inspiring you to put pen to paper? Publishers of all genres are reporting a deluge of manuscripts — it seems the unique circumstances of recent times have inspired would-be authors to get writing. Coronavirus isn’t the first pandemic to inspire creativity. History is full of great art that has risen from the ashes of plague, pestilence and pandemics — none more than Paradise Lost by John Milton (1608–74), which describes the “red right hand that plagues us” about the great plague of 1665. Milton may never have lived to finish his epic poem had he not escaped ‘the heat of the plague’ in London by fleeing to Chalfont St Giles. It was here — in a ‘pretty box’ farm workers' cottage that still stands today — where he completed his most remarkable work and dreamed up its sequel, Paradise Regained. The cottage has been a museum (miltonscottage.org) since 1887, remaining open through two world wars — indeed, March 2020 was the first time the museum wasn’t able to welcome visitors in spring. But want-to-be authors can still find inspiration by visiting the museum’s website for a virtual tour in verse. Writing prompts, journal ideas and creative writing tips also will inspire homeschooling children and adults to channel inspiration during isolation, just like Milton. Milton wasn’t our only local literary sensation. The American poet Robert Frost (1874 —1963) lived in a bungalow on Reynold’s Road, Beaconsfield, after moving to England in 1912. His famous poems, Mending Wall and Birches, were penned while he lived there.
A tour of Berkshire and Berkshire's colourful literary history By JUDITH HURRELL
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