As I have been with many other authors and books that have since joined my favourites, I was introduced to the works of B.B., the pen name of Denys Watkins-Pitchford, MBE, by Melissa Harrison through By Ash, Oak, and Thorn, her homage to his book The Little Grey Men. For those unfamiliar with B.B., and since becoming aware of him and his works myself I am regularly surprised by how many aren’t. He was a particularly prolific author, artist, naturalist, and that increasingly rare personage, a countryman. He wrote and published scores of books of fiction – many for younger readers – and non-fiction, illustrated not only his own but those of others as well, studied art in both Paris and at the Royal College of Art in London, was art master at Rugby School for nearly two decades, and near the end of his life was honored with an MBE by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Yet whether in the country or the city, his love of the natural world was the guiding force of his life, as testified by his famous motto:

The wonder of the world
The beauty and the power,
The shapes of things,
Their colours, lights and shades,
These I saw.
Look ye also while life lasts.

B.B.’s novel The Little Grey Men, originally published in 1942, as it was the recipient of the Carnegie Medal that same year and was later adapted into a television series in 1975, is most likely to be his most popularly known amongst his many books. It recounts the story – as directly received from one with personal knowledge of it, as he tells it – of the last four gnomes in England who live inside an old oak tree beside Folly Brook in Warwickshire. In testament to the familiarity B.B. had with nature, his heroes names are, appropriately, Baldmoney (Meum athamanticum), Sneezewort (Achillea ptarmica), Dodder (Genus Cuscuta) and Cloudberry (Rubus chamaemorus); all plants well-known in the British countryside. An adventure tale at its heart, the story unfolds in the search for Cloudberry, who had, previous to the beginning of the narrative, gone off to seek the source of Folly Brook. Desiring to learn what has since become of their brother, Sneezewort and Baldmoney set off to follow his path up the brook in a boat of their own making. It is from this point that the reader must take up the book for him or herself as I wouldn’t want to spoil the unfolding of any of B.B.’s marvelous narrative and as a result ruin the spell that he casts upon his reader through it.

To some modern readers, living in a world where so many are now so far removed from the countryside, traditional country pursuits, and the cycles of nature, The Little Grey Men may seem a bit more harsh in in its depictions of some of the interactions between the Stream People (the animals who live along Folly Brook – such as The King of Fishers, Herne the Heron, Blue Button the Bluetit – as well as the gnomes themselves), and particularly between them and the humans of the area, than what is often portrayed in more recently published books for young readers. Apart from the aforementioned alienation from the natural world, this is also perhaps attributable to the discomfort with nuance in the modern world. Too many today, living in a rapidly changing world they increasingly can’t understand, retreat into a desire for everything to be black and white. In B.B.’s portrayal of the Folly Brook world, even though it is richly imbued with fantastic elements, Nature’s true palette is more truthfully depicted, including her infinite shades of grey.

This familiarity with the myriad-faceted natural world, a world that so often defies our human moral sensibilities in its intricately interlaced cycles in which the attainment of ecological balance trumps any of our own ideas about right and wrong, is what could reasonably be thought to have provided B.B. with the broad perspective he takes of it, and from which he draws in his writing. An avid hunter and fisherman as well as a watcher of birds, stroller through meadows, sitter upon fallen logs, and observer of many large and small forms of life to be seen in the world if one only stops long enough to do so, B.B. intricately interweaves the commonly observable with the wondrously fantastic into The Little Grey Men, creating a story that is both charming and complex.

Of course when considering The Little Grey Men, it is worth noting the circumstances of the world into which it was published. In 1942, the year of its publication, Great Britain and many other nations of the world were locked in one of the largest wars human history has ever known. In Britain itself, cities were being bombed, and civilians as well as soldiers were being killed both abroad and at home. Demands upon the people and the land were extreme. Consequently, even a fantasy such as the world of Folly Brook would be expected to have reflections of real world events. While none of these are obvious on the surface as they might be in the writing of a story-teller of lesser skill than B.B., the depictions of needing to live with the the natural cycles, struggles, and balances of nature, as well as with the “extra-natural” cruelty visited upon it from outside, are nonetheless present and available to be explored with the application of due reflection.

Another point worthy of note is the complexity of B.B.’s gnomes themselves. Unlike many novels for younger readers, particularly of more recent publication, the gnomes each have individual and complex personalities that reflect a wide range of qualities and emotions, not all of them by any means pleasant. From friendliness, hospitality, and gratefulness, to bitterness, fear, and sorrow, to bravery, loyalty, and selflessness, B.B.’s gnomes are perhaps most appealing in their intelligibility as not only individuals but as individuals likely known to the reader. None are tropes or types, mind you, but rather assemblages of often contradictory qualities that make them so very… I refuse to write “human” as it would be inappropriate so please understand my meaning when I write instead, gnome.

Of particular interest to myself, and perhaps to others who have and will read the book as well, the inclusion by B.B. in The Little Grey Men of a religious element in the lives of the Stream People is especially well done. As the pre-Socratic philosopher Xenophanes is recorded as saying, “If cattle and horses, or lions, had hands, or were able to draw with their feet and produce the works which men do, horses would draw the forms of gods like horses, and cattle like cattle, and they would make the gods’ bodies the same shape as their own,” so it follows that the deity most applicable to the Stream People would be one who collectively resembles themselves – Pan.

In common with those of the central and supporting characters of Kenneth Grahame’s 1908 novel The Wind in the Willows, the prayers of the gnomes and the other Stream People are directed to the ancient Greek god of the forests and fields (for those who may have only read the American edition of Mr. Grahames’s novel where the chapter “The Piper at the Gates of Dawn” was removed to protect the delicate religious sensibilities of American Christians, I recommend obtaining a copy of the unexpurgated edition and reading it again). Also in common with Grahame’s novel, Pan plays an important role in the story of The Little Grey Men itself. Indeed, in a pivotal scene, in testimony to the level of moral honesty and emotional complexity B.B. ascribed to the young readers of his day, a prayer is offered up to Pan that would not even be thinkable to the skittish, overly-sensitive publishers of today.

Far more could be written here, but I hope the point has been clearly made: The Little Grey Men is a book of particular merit that should be read and re-read by all with an interest in story-telling of the highest quality, and especially by those who find many of their greatest as well as most sublime joys in the natural world. I strongly urge you not only to read it, but if you have children in your life who also rejoice in the wonders of nature, read it to or with them as well. And after you read it, reflect upon it; discuss it with others if possible, and then at some future time read it again. I have now done so many times and it opens further into new levels with each reading, as I very much hope and believe it will for you as well.

Title: The Little Grey Men

Author: B.B. (Denys Watkins-Pitchford)

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Format: paperback

Pages: 256 pp. w/ black & white illustrations by the author

ISBN: 978-0-19-279350-8

Publication date: original edition 1942; this edition February 2012

Notate bene:

For those who would like to learn more about Pan’s appearances in 19th and 20th century literature, I highly recommend Prof. Paul Robichaud’s Pan; the Great God’s Return.

B.B.’s novels are largely now out of print, however two of them remain in print:

Melissa Harrison’s twin homages to B.B.’s The Little Grey Men and Down the Bright Stream are published by Chicken House Press:

Collections of B.B.’s essays on fishing, hunting, and naturalist pursuits remain in print thanks to Merlin Unwin Books.

The B.B. Society welcomes all those who have an interest in and would enjoy learning more about the life and works of Denys Watkins-Pitchford