Both portraits made in 2008 when Toby made the pilgrimage to Wormingford and like so many before and after, wound his way down the ancient track to Bottengoms farmhouse (previously home to the artists John and Christine Nash)
and found Ronald at work in his garden.

“Preparatory Studies for a Portrait of Ronald Blythe, Writer (1922 – 2023) by Toby Wiggins RP”

Ronald’s famous work ‘Akenfield’ (1969) along with an array of later writings had been a source of inspiration to me for some time and so in 2008 I made a visit and he kindly let me draw and paint small studies of him for a show that I was preparing for that year in Dorset County Museum. 

He was about 85 when I visited him at Bottengoms and, like so many before and after, I followed the long and ancient track to this hidden place and found him gardening. He smiled, shook my hand in silence and led me inside for tea.

He was everything I might have hoped; kind and gentle with a mercurial wit, tremendously well read and learned, highly amused by the world and yet deeply serious and guided by his faith. Like certain people do, he showed me a level of hospitality and attention that I didn’t deserve.

It was one of those brief encounters that turned out to be quite profound and of considerable consequence to me.

He was generous with his time and alongside his sitting for me to draw him, he showed me around the ancient farmhouse and then local villages and their churches. He talked of artists and writers, of the landscape and Suffolk life past and present. At one time springing upstairs like a man half his age to return with two walking sticks – one belonging to John Masefield and the other to John Nash. I remember Nash’s was topped with a black ball held in a bird’s claw – perhaps a piece of ebony. 

Ronald had grown up with painters, knowing Cedric Morris and Arthur Lett-Haines and had been part of the close circle of John and Christine Nash. I think he had a fascination for the processes of the painter, superficially different to those of the writer while containing the same creative core. He spoke to me with great fondness about his friend John Nash among many others. He gave me a dip pen from an old box full of the artist’s paraphernalia which he kept for occasions when someone like me would drop by, which they did! I used it when drawing a recent portrait of a Dorset hedgelayer.

Ronald sat for me in his study, at the top of the stairs, his back to a small mullioned window overlooking the garden and illuminating his antiquated typewriter ( a hand me down from Ian Collins) on the table which he had continued to work at for almost 40 years when I visited in 2008. He told me that time was precious and you needed lots of it to yourself for writing as well as ‘just a few close and trusted friends’.

“Not for us covetous desires and inordinate love of riches. Nor for us inordinate affection, although quite how one is to keep this within bounds I have failed to understand. Some friends, the cat, some books, this landscape familiar to me since boyhood, are all in receipt of my inordinate affection and the cat would not be pleased with anything less. But if I am not covetous, it is because I have all I need.” 

I had intended to make a portrait of Ronald soon after my visit, but other things prevailed and it got postponed indefinitely. 

He passed away in January 2023 aged 100. After hearing the news on the radio, I began to read his final publication ‘Next to Nature; a lifetime in the English Countryside’ (2022) having received it as a Christmas gift. I found to my great surprise that he had recorded my visit in one of the essays – a parting gift from this extraordinary man. 

I have unearthed the sketches from 2008 and begin to work towards a painted portrait. I hope to exhibit this in 2025.