By chance I followed an Internet link just in time to put the 25^th April into my diary. Arriving at the Red Lion Hotel I was made very welcome by some 20 Goudge-lovers who were discussing their favourites among her books. I contributed some words on The Middle Window and a possible parallel with Rosemary Sutcliff’s Bonnie Dundee.

After a presentation on Goudge’s love of poetry, the company discussed the pros and cons of becoming a formally-constituted literary society with a committee and subscriptions etc. and it was decided to remain a web-based society for the time being, in the capable hands of Mr. and Mrs. Gaudin, whose computing and literary skills were much in evidence that day in the tasteful programme booklet and PowerPoint presentations. (The cost of hiring the room and the delicious buffet had been found from a fee payable in advance or on the day.)

Then we shared cars for a drive to Peppard Common to visit, by kind arrangement, Goudge’s cottage where she spent the last decades of her life with her companion Jessie until she died in 1984. We saw round the cottage, the garden Jessie tended, and the church where she worshipped.

The organisers had provided a display of rare Goudgianalia, – first editions, articles, and letters including one from Rosemary Sutcliff, and the first editions of Sutcliff’s Arthurian trilogy bearing handwritten dedications to Elizabeth Goudge. We also learned of a new edition of Green Dolphin Country to be published by Capuchin Classics. (The new film of Moonacre was hardly mentioned!)

So if you are a fan of Goudge’s writings, hurry along to the website at www.elizabethgoudge.org and there is also a page on the BBC website via Oxford > History > Literature > Elizabeth Goudge

Jessica Yates