As I await the publication of the latest book by Alan Garner I found myself rereading his 1997 collection of essays and lectures entitled The Voice that Thunders.

Alan Garner is a widely acclaimed writer known most especially to those of us growing up in the 1970s and 80s. The author of The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and The Owl Service most notably as well as more latterly the Booker Prize nominated Treacle Walker (2021) Garner is a man who has kept largely out of the spotlight. He suffered childhood illness and trauma and has battled mental illness throughout his adult life.

So this is a very honest book, I was particularly struck by his account of his anger and subsequent breakdown during the filming in Wales of The Owl service when he wanted to assault a member of the cast for not taking the role more seriously. He is a serious man who has deep rooted belief in the importance of our spiritual being and the education system’s obligation to encourage a child’s imagination which he believes it does not. He also shares very ‘honest’ reviews of his book sent to him by a teacher, all declaring how boring it was!

This was a brave move by Garner in my opinion; a complex man who shunned the limelight and disliked the literary set, he opened himself up with this book and gave us an insight into how he came to develop the imagination to write the books that he did. There can be no doubt that what he experienced as a child became the bedrock to his love of myth and folklore and how that weaved into his local landscape, a place he seldom liked to leave.