Strictly speaking gnomes (the word was coined by Paracelsus during the Renaissance) were earth-dwellers, and these three did indeed live under a tree bole, but they are equally at ease in the water and, curiously, in the air. You may have also noticed that their names are taken from the common names of native plants. Denys Watkins-Pitchford (1905–90), who wrote under the pseudonym ‘BB’, was the author of more than sixty books for adults and children. BB was both a writer and illustrator, and his charming original illustrations decorate these books. But above all he was a countryman, whose intimate and unsentimental knowledge of animals, birds and plants, as well as his gifts as a storyteller, make these books unique. a b c "The little grey men: a story for the young in heart" (1st edition). LC Online Catalog. Library of Congress (lccn.loc.gov). Retrieved 2018-02-19. It is J.R.R. Tolkein without the fantasy being predominant, and like Wind In The Willows but with less anthropomorphism.

This is a story about the last gnomes in Britain. They are honest-to-goodness gnomes, none of your baby, fairy-book tinsel stuff, and they live by hunting and fishing, like the animals and birds, which is only proper and right.”—From the author’s introduction

The Church Times Archive

The response of BB’s gnomes to the drying up of their stream is a perfect expression of the oikophilia — love of home — described by Scruton. While at the Northampton School of Art, Watkins-Pitchford won a travelling scholarship to Paris. He was later to say that he could not remember how long he had spent in Paris, but Quinn [3] suggests that it was probably about three months. He worked at a studio in Montparnasse, and attended drawing classes. It is unknown exactly where he studied. In the autumn of 1924, he entered the Royal College of Art in London. In 1930 he became an assistant art master at Rugby School where he remained for seventeen years. While at Rugby School he began contributing regularly to the Shooting Times and started his careers as an author and an illustrator. He wrote under the pen name of '"BB"', a name based on the size of lead shot he used to shoot geese, but he maintained the use of his real name as that of the illustrator in all his books. He later illustrated books by other writers, and sold his own paintings locally. [2] [3] Later years [ edit ]

Robin Clobber is a human seven-year-old boy, a scion of a noble family, who meets the gnomes and whose model ship is found and used by them. As BB says in his introduction to The Little Grey Men, most fairy books portray miniature men and women with ridiculous tinsel wings, doing impossible things with flowers and cobwebs. He may have been referring to Cecily Mary Barker’s Flower Fairies, first published in 1927. As he rightly adds, ‘That sort of make-believe is all right for some people, but it won’t do for you and me.’ His gnomes are never sentimental or twee. They are just a short imaginative step from the woodland creatures that are their friends. In his memoir The Idle Countryman, published in 1943, a year after The Little Grey Men, BB stresses his love of wandering alone in the wild, especially at dusk, and the mix of enchantment and fear it can generate.

In 1942, Watkins-Pitchford, now using his pseudonym BB, introduced thousands of children to the last gnomes in England, in his tale The Little Grey Men, which won the Carnegie Medal. I first came across the story at my Church of England primary school in the mid-1960s when it was added to the curriculum — no doubt to keep The Hobbit company — as another adventure tale that had very small people playing a starring part. When studying The Lindisfarne Gospels recently, in the British Library, I noticed that they were full of eagles. Those eagles are surely not merely theological symbols, but reflections of the wild world in which the scribes lived and prayed — the beauty of the craftsmanship proclaiming the glory of God in creation. His hostility to the use of agrochemicals pre-dated Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, and was given personal impetus in 1974 when his beloved wife, Cecily, became unwell immediately after being doused by crop spray from the farm next door. She died within weeks. This book ought to be on the same list of British countryside classics as Watership Down and The Wind In The Willows, which it somewhat resembles. It was a favorite of mine as a child, and it holds up when I read it as an adult. “BB” balances sweetness with the harsh realities both of nature and of encroaching civilization to create a book that is enchanting but unsentimental.

This quote, so apt for his works, has sometimes been thought to have been another one of 'BB'’s creations but it was in fact copied from a tombstone in a north-country churchyard by his father. [ citation needed] Adaptations of his works [ edit ] According to Wikipedia, Denys (James) Watkins-Pitchford, who was awarded the 1942 Carnegie Medal for his landscape inspired fairytale novel The Little Grey Men (about the last gnomes of England searching for their absconded brother Couldberry, and for which he used the Pseudonym B.B. as both author and illustrator), he was a British author, illustrator and naturalist (who lived from 1905 until 1990). The Little Grey Men: A story for the young in heart is a children's fantasy novel written by Denys Watkins-Pitchford under the pen name "BB" and illustrated by the author under his real name. [2] It was first published by Eyre & Spottiswoode in 1942 and it has been reissued several times. [3] Set in the English countryside, it features the adventures of four gnomes who may be the last of their race. At the same time it features the countryside during three seasons of the year. That absorption in the countryside is what makes these books so captivating. BB’s attention to detail – to subtle changes in weather, the migration of swifts or the scent of willow buds – reminds us to notice such things again; things which once seemed magical but which in adulthood have become humdrum or ignored. He prefaced Down the Bright Stream with a text copied by his clergyman father from a Cumbrian gravestone, which sums up his wide-awakeness: My least favorite part is the middle section in Crow Wood with the Giant Grum. The whole story has a distinct Wind in the Willows flavor and so the god Pan appears in this story too. But I didn't like the wood setting as much as they confront their enemy (a human!). The wood is supposed to feel grim because of Giant Grum so B.B. pulls that off well, but I didn't like the claustrophobic feel of it. I loved the journey along the river so much more with its openness and the lilt of the river and friendliness of the animals, even though there is danger on the river as well.Pan, the Greek guardian of nature, is the unseen deity who protects the gnomes and forest animals, as in the Piper at the Gates of Dawn. The Little Grey Men is charming and old-fashioned (with all that implies), a mini-adventure for us but a hardy expedition for the gnomes that undertake the journey. Will they achieve their goal or will it all end in disaster, not least from the prying eyes of Giants? They freely use words such as “love” and “contemplative”. Oates has suggested that he was imbued with a Franciscan spirit. D. J. Watkins-Pitchford at Library of Congress, with 42 library catalogue records (includes work published as by BB or B.B.) White Stoat is a vicious ferret who serves as Giant Grum's henchman, and is rewarded for killing rabbits.