I got to know Laurie Lee in 1992 when I was researching my biography of the Reverend W Awdry and was staying at the home of mutual friends in Slad, Gloucestershire, which was within an easy daily commute from Mr Awdry's home in Stroud.
Of course I knew Cider with Rose and Laurie's other writings, but what I didn't know was that he he knew of me!
By the time of our first meeting – gin and tonics in the garden of a house in the Slad valley, just up the road from Laurie's childhood home (and which had been the used as the idyllic film location for the BBC TV's 1971 film version of his classic coming-of-age story) – Laurie was practically blind but, as an avid radio listener, knew me by voice from my frequent broadcasts and, in particular, as presenter of BBC Radio 4's then arts programme, Kaleidoscope.
His radio listening explains the inscription in my first edition of Cider (originally published in 1959 with drawings by John Ward) as "friend of the air"...
A few years later, I interviewed Laurie about A Moment of War – his recently published memoir of his days as a combatant in the Spanish Civil War...
It was now 1991 and he was completely blind, hence his moving inscription: "A sign from the dark"...
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The following year, I approached Laurie with an invitation to be the subject of a radio conversation of the kind I had recently broadcast with other writers – among them, Terry Pratchett, Roald Dahl, P L Travers, Ray Bradbury and Kathleen Hale – his letter declining to participate is, I think, one of the most gracious refusals imaginable: "...If I did this at all I'd love to do it with you..."
But, of course, I can't help wishing he'd said, "Yes"!
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