Big Days in Ashthorpe Magna

Welcome to
Ashthorpe Magna.
When I first started writing the book I needed to use a town name - one with
which people were familiar, and yet at the same time uncertain as to its exact
location. My daughter, Lucy, suggested we use Ashthorpe, but I recalled it more
as the "Magna". Ashthorpe Magna was born in the literary sense, but
was it the right place to use?

I then forced myself to visit my excellent local
hostelry, the Hollybush, on several evenings to conduct a scientific survey! A
total of 20 people were questioned about Ashthorpe Magna and the results were
amazing; six recalled driving through the town, six had never heard of it and
did not believe it existed and eight had seen signs but could not recall
exactly where. Clearly the name was correct for the genre of the book which
could be described a "suspension of disbelief"!

Shortly after
I left the navy in the 60's a wonderful dramatisation appeared on TV called
Clochmerle. At first it sounded a little dull, a series based purely on the
characters and events in a rural French town - Clochmerle (Clochemerle was
written in 1934 by Gabriel Chevallier, but was set in 1925). The nation
responded, and viewers in their millions turned on to see if the mayor would
take precedence over the parish priest by erecting the new "pissoir"
in front of the church. Week by week the disagreements between priest and mayor
were in our homes, and a multitude of characters from the little town were
added.

In 2006,
eighty years after it was written, I read the book for the first time and to my
astonishment the characters were as lifelike as they were on TV forty years
ago, and the situations as realistic today as ever.

Moreover the characters were people I know, or had
known, in small towns in Leicestershire, Hampshire and Warwickshire where I have
spent most of my life. Added to this each character was as likely to be found
in Wickham or Bishops Waltham, Melton Mowbray or Ashby de la Zouch or Alcester
where I now live. Indeed it dawned on me in a Damascene manner (look it up!)
that the people in each place were actually the same, and that their
personalities were carved by their surroundings. Especially in Ashthorpe
Magna... WELCOME.

Maurice Abney-Hastings was born in Nottingham, brought
up in Leicestershire and spent 15 years in Hampshire, but for the past 20
something years has resided in rural Warwickshire. All the towns in which he
has lived are the same sort of size as Ashthorpe Magna, and his writing conveys
his deep knowledge and love of English country life. 
More about the author

Maurice has his office above Venue Xpresso coffee shop on the High
Street and any local visitor is welcome to call in to purchase, not only an
excellent coffee, but also a signed first edition from the author. These can
also  be ordered from afar via the website (see link).