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Chapter 8 - London Road

B-com part 1 English Notes

Chapter 8 - London Road

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Summary

All the people who live in UK, USA and the European countries are rich and well to do. In every country there exist vast countrysides inhabited by poor, old-fashioned, hand to mouth rustic people. Most of them lead nomadic life like gypsies.

A famous English author Laurie Lee has written a novel about the life of a cotswold youth who left his countryside home located in the range of hills of southern England to migrate London city roughly a hundred miles away from his native place to be approached by London Road. The youth spent his life in London for one year by playing his traditional violin and labouring on a London building site as a construction labour.

The main character of the novel is a rustic English youth who had three sisters and four brothers (including him). Their mother was still alive. It was the year 1924 when the family of the youth still residing in the home country consisted of mother and three sons in all four. Probably their father had belonged to ages long before. Now the second son of the family also resolved to leave home and to proceed to London leaving behind a small family of mother and her two sons in all three persons.

One sunny Midsummer morning on June 1934 the adventurous rustic youth was provided a heavy breakfast by his mother who was apparently a little bit aggrieved or worried about her separation from her second son. She did not utter a single word but her motherly instincts unconsciously forced to put her hand on chain sitting on which the youth relished his breakfast probably the last thing cooked affectionately by his mother. It was really a pathetic state of affair. The old lady made no fuss, no appeals, and no attempts to weep and did not advise the youth. She did not tax him with any kind of persuasion and revelation of any kind of grief. She was brave women born to bear the trouble of separation from her Kith and Kin as an ideal rustic mother who believed that poverty is the fate of rural population world over.

The youth who was about 19 years old was not a fully matured man indeed a brave and self-confident person who believed that if he tried he would surely make good fortune. His food provision of journey consisted of a tin of treacle biscuits and some cheese not sufficient for a 100 miles journey on foot on a dusty road.

He was bit excited. He had vain glorious feelings. he did not know as to how far he would be required to walk. He saw around the last glimpse of the cottage walls narrowing like the arms of an iron maiden. He recollected the secret whispering of rustic lasses "MARRY AND SETTLE DOWN". He set aside this type of psychological stimuli because he has grown tired of his wandering in the lily area, joblessly and naturally painfully.

He was wearing a pair of heavy strong boots and had a hazel stick in his hand. The brave son of Adam traveled alone when his village paradise was lost. He tramped through the treeless hills of Wiltshire on a dusty track. At time he had a strange feelings of home-sickness and his sub-conscious heard the sound of hurrying footsteps coming after him and the voices of his two brothers and mother call him back.

the reality was that he was alone; he was free to go where ever he wanted at his sweet will and pleasure. His inner self murmured, "You asked for it. Its up to you now. You are on your own and nobody's going to stop you".

It is a human instinct that one cannot over come the feeling of the home sickness so when he stepped forward to London Road he heard the echoes of home by tinkling sound of her kitchen, shafts of sun from the windows falling across his household furniture's across his bedroom and the very bed which he had left at his village home!!

Difficult Words

Inevitable --------------------- unavoidable

Mournfully --------------------- sadly

Taunted ------------------------ hurt

Echoes ------------------------- repeated sounds

Familiar ----------------------- well known

Reluctance --------------------- unwillingness

Vainglorious ------------------- very proud / arrogant

Gnarled ------------------------ rough

Propelled ---------------------- persuaded to leave


Question and Answers

Q.1 What was the part of the writer's life that he closed forever?

Ans. The days passed in the village where he grew up and got education in the school were ended. The period of his country life is closed for good.


Q.2 How did writer's mother feel about his leaving home and how did she sow her feelings?

Ans. The writer's mother felt sorrow about his leaving home. Her three daughters and a son had already left her. She showed her feelings by looking at him progressively without saying any words just raising her hand in farewell and blessing.


Q.3 The writer says that before his departure his mother gave him only a long and searching look. What do you think the look was searching for/

Ans. She was looking for his maternal love. She wanted that he did not go but she did not utter a single word to convince him not to go.


Q.4 Do you think the writer's home life was a happy one?

Ans. No, the writer had spent months of restless unease before leaving home.


Q.5 Did the writer enjoy the feeling that he was now free?

Ans. When nobody stopped him from going, he became very pleased feeling himself free. He was on his own. He could do what ever liked. He cherished his freedom.


Q.6 Quote the words that tell us that the writer had an optimistic nature?

Ans. He had an optimistic nature. His nature is exposed in these words : "Go where you will. It's all yours. You asked for it. It's up to you now. You are on your won, and nobody's going to stop you."


Q.7 Why did the writer spend months wandering about the hills before he left the home?

Ans. It is very hard task to leave one's native place forever. He loved the scenery and the people of his country home. He, therefore, took many months to make the final decision of going to London