PD James spent her formative formative years in Ludlow, Shropshire. My colleague Derrick Anderton and I drew and interviewed James for the Shropshire Magazine in 1994. When Derrick asked whether she thought fondly of those days, she said: “It was a beautiful, beautiful town in which to spend one’s childhood.”
She spoke of knowing Ludlow well: “We used to explore all the paths around the castle, all around the hill. Down below there was the river Teme and the water meadows. I can remember very, very clearly the school I went to, and the names of some of the children come right back to me. The British school, it was called, and the earliest poem I learned there was called Mamble.” As a farewell, she recited the verses to us, adding: “I hadn’t thought of that since I was about nine.”
