As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning

Synopsis[edit]

In 1934 Laurie Lee leaves his home in Gloucestershire for London. He visits Southampton and first tries his luck at playing his violin in the street. His apprenticeship proves profitable and he decides to move eastwards. He makes his way along the south coast, and then turns inland and heads north for London. There he meets his half-American girlfriend, Cleo, who is the daughter of an anarchist.


Cleo's father finds him a job as a labourer and he rents a room, but has to move on as the room is taken over by a prostitute. He lives in London for almost a year as a member of a gang of wheelbarrow pushers. Once the building nears completion he knows that his time is up and decides to go to Spain because he knows the Spanish for "Will you please give me a glass of water?"


He lands in Galicia in July 1935. Joining up with three young German musicians, he accompanies them around Vigo and then they split up outside Zamora. By August 1935 he reaches Toledo, where he has a meeting with the South African poet Roy Campbell and his family, whom he comes across while playing his violin. They invite him to stay in their house.


By the end of September Lee reaches the sea. Then he comes to the Sierra Morena mountains. He decides to turn west and follow the Guadalquivir, adding several months to his journey, and taking him to the sea in a roundabout way. He turns eastwards, heading along the bare coastal shelf of Andalusia. He hears talk of war in Abyssinia. He arrives at Tarifa, making another stop over in Algeciras.


He decides to stick to his plan to follow the coast round Spain, and sets off for Málaga, stopping in Gibraltar. During his last days in Malaga his violin breaks. After his new line of work, acting as a guide to British tourists, is curtailed by local guides, he meets a young German who gives him a violin.


In the winter of 1935 Lee decides to stay in Almuñécar. He manages to get work in a hotel. Lee and his friend Manolo, the hotel's waiter, drink in the local bar alongside the other villagers. Manolo is the leader of a group of fishermen and labourers, and they discuss the expected revolution.


In February 1936 the Socialists win the election and the Popular Front begins. In the spring the villagers burn down the church, but then change their minds. In the middle of May there is a strike and the peasants come in from the countryside to lend their support, as the village splits between Fascists and Communists.


In the middle of July 1936 war breaks out. Manolo helps to organise a militia. Granada is held by the rebels, and so is Almuñécar's neighbour Altofaro. A British destroyer from Gibraltar arrives to pick up any British subjects who might be marooned on the coast and Lee is taken on board.


The epilogue describes Lee's return to his family home in Gloucestershire and his desire to help his comrades in Spain. He finally manages to make his way through France and crosses the Pyrenees into Spain in December 1937.