This work investigates the vanishing reality of traditional English rural life through the lens of one man's eighty-year experience on the land. Sheila Stewart, an oral historian, utilizes a series of recorded conversations with Mont Abbott to reconstruct the social fabric of Oxfordshire. The book presents a dual-sided account that balances the communal joys of pre-industrial country living against the harsh economic and personal realities of life before the modern welfare state.

Historians and sociologists frequently cite this work as a significant contribution to the preservation of disappearing rural vernacular and social customs. Readers often note the accessible, conversational tone of the prose, which maintains the integrity of the subject's original voice while providing necessary historical context.