We'll trace the Rainbow
Jean Brown‘We have a love affair with the land, the great outdoors, the animals we rear and the wild things which are not too shy to be our neighbours.’ Jean Brown
Jean Brown likens her life to the Pennine hillside on which the Brown family has lived for forty years. Their sixteenth-century farmhouse was bought in 1929, rescued from ruin and finally covenanted to The National Trust in 1987. It is balanced just short of the hilltop, not precariously, for though the valley is steep, its foundations are firm. Those living there can see beyond the farm boundary, across the dale, to the autumn purple of Ilkley Moor and the winter tablecloth of Ingleborough. She feels her life has mirrored the pattern of the dales, always climbing, frequently falling, often in sunshine but uncomplaining if a storm rages, confident it will abate.
A pinnacle, she says, is to climb, not to live upon. She knows that though mist may shroud the opposite ridge, so that the only way seems to be down, it is only an illusion. Though she goes down she will always climb up again. Hers is a tale told with humour and joy, wonder and gratitude. It will make you laugh and cry and also leave you with some of the eternal optimism of the Brown family.
Jean’s story of life in the Yorkshire Dales, begun in We'll see the Cuckoo, is continued in We’ll trace the Rainbow, and followed by We'll buy another on Monday. A fourth book, We'll blow with the Wind, brings the story right up to date.
‘Reading from Jean’s book is like sitting by a cool stream of water in the heat of the day. It’s refreshing, because she shares some of the things in life that we all long for.' Ernestine Aberle – New York
