I was rooting around my shelves and discovered one lurking in the layer at the back that I'd totally forgotten - Brother Dusty-Feet, by Rosemary Sutcliffe. I think it must have 'fallen off' my old bookshelves into my suitcase when I was visiting my parents a few years back, and I intended to re-read it but forgot. I clearly bought it from a library sale at some point, and it was elderly when I got it, but it was utterly sweet and charming. Set in Elizabethan England (although with odd bits acknowledging the modern reader by explaining how it was different in the old days), and telling the story of 11 year old Hugh, who has been orphaned and lives with his uncle and aunt. The only 2 things left to him from his life before his father died are his dog, Argos, and a small pot of periwinkles from the garden, and when his aunt announces her plans to have his dog killed, he gathers the two and sets out on the open road. His father used to tell him about studying in Oxford, and that's become his dream, so he decides to work his way across country to Oxford and hope to find someone who'll take him on as a combined companion and servant, as happened to his father. Instead, on his second day of travel, he encounters a band of travelling players who invite him to join them in a vagabond life - they need a new boy to play the female roles, because the existing lad is getting too big, and they can write parts in for Argos too. The dog was my favourite character - he was very good at making sure the pot of periwinkles didn't run away!
Do You like book Brother Dusty-Feet (1990)?
From BBC Radio 4 Extra:Adaptation of Rosemary Sutcliff's acclaimed Elizabethan England children's novel.Ten year old Hugh is an orphan, forced to live on a farm with his Aunt Alison, who treats him cruelly. When she threatens to get rid of his dog, Argos, for running after the ducks, Hugh feels there's only one thing they can do. It's a decision which leads him onto the roads of Elizabethan England, where many adventures are to befall him.Hugh ..... Josef LindsayNarrator ..... Adjoa AndohAunt Alison ..... Jane WhittenshawTobias Pennyfeather ..... Allan CordunerJonathan Whiteleaf ..... Peter Hamilton DyerTom O'Bedlam ..... Carl PrekoppNicky Bodkin ..... Gwilym LeeZachary Hawkins ..... James Lailey
—Laura
