She was an artist, a light giver and an original, and she never for a moment knew it”, we knew exactly what he meant because of Morton’s subtle, affecting performance as a woman who despite losing love never gives up having hope. When Laurie said of his mother “ loved this world and saw it fresh with hopes that never clouded. Ruby Ashbourne Serkis almost stole the show as the cheeky Rosie, while Samantha Morton’s Annie simultaneously anchored the story and provided it with its warm, big-beating heart.

That it did so was largely thanks to Timothy Spall’s evocative voiceover, which reminded viewers of the stark beauty of Lee’s prose, and two strong central performances. A BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of Laurie Lees lyrical autobiography of his childhood in a secluded Cotswold valley. It overflows with stories and characters made fantastical by the writers child-perspective, and it draws the reader irresistibly into the lost land of the past. At its strongest moments this uneven adaptation captured that feeling perfectly. Cider With Rosie 'is the best and most vital kind of memoir, rich with colourful, sensuous impressions of life in an English village after the First World War. The earlier production is a triumph compared to this one, with a wonderful semi-impressionistic view of this dramatisation of English village life after the first world war. It’s a surprisingly sad tale, not simply the story of a world now vanished but, more powerfully, an elegiac cry for all childhoods, for what we misinterpret and what we fail to miss until it’s gone. In 1975, the BBC made a film version of Cider with Rosie, also approved by Laurie Lee, and featuring Rosemary Leach as the mother. There is an almost terrible yearning that runs through Cider With Rosie, which was published in 1959 when Lee was in his forties.

Cider with rosie story