A WRITER’S book about her life growing up on a farm in the North Cotswolds has been published.

The Deaf Doctor combines an autobiographical account of Marian Eason’s childhood and a biographical depiction of her father’s move to farming following a period as a doctor during World War II.

It covers the period from the 1920s to the end of the 1950s.

Marian grew up on Bourton Far Hill Farm, Bourton-on-the-Hill, and her father was Edward Holt Eason, always known as Ted, who lived from 1915 to 1999.

She said: “The book turned into a love-letter to the past and to the 1950s especially.

“Memories of those slowly-turning years of early childhood remain vivid in my mind, playing into a curious hinterland of strictness and freedom co-existent with adults who often drank too much, rode hard to hounds and expected children to stay out of the way most of the time.

“This suited us just fine. How else could we have roamed on our ponies unfettered and all day long, returning home hungry, tired and entirely satisfied with our day?

“Our lives were inhabited by those who worked on the farms and the animals, both domestic and agricultural, who greeted us each morning.

“Life might have been full of mishaps but it was free of most restrictions which are now considered normal.

“Imagine no speed cameras, no parking fines, very little limit on free speech, the school day was free of politics apart from a little ‘current affairs’.

“Gender confusion was not a matter for comment — some females were very male and some males very female and they were allowed to get on with their lives.

“We were taught to behave respectfully to other people, an essential ingredient of civilised life.

“Books were an emerging delight. Imagination was coupled with activity. We behaved badly and got punished and then were free again to reoffend or not.

“If this sounds appealing to a modern reader, believe me when I say it seems now to have been an ideal childhood, though for grown-ups it was a time of complicated readjustment after six years of war.

“The 1950s were a wonderful time to be a child, how quickly they would pass.

“Revisit it with me. Your company will be most welcome.”

As an equestrian journalist Marian, who now lives on another farm in Warwickshire, has researched numerous works, including The Master of the Horse, racing books by Ivor Herbert and George Rainbird’s An Illustrated Guide to Wine.

Her commissioned The Best Little Hunt in England was published in 2019.

She has ridden horses competitively and followed hounds all her life.

The Deaf Doctor was published in late August by The Book Guild.