Follow Me to Tomorrow

When Matthew Caldwell leaves school, his journey to tomorrow appears to be mapped out. He is engaged to be apprentice to Tom Schofield, the blacksmith in the Norfolk village that has not only been Matthew's home but his whole world. But destiny has other plans for the lad - plans that involve seduction by a string of older women, apparitions induced both by strong home-brew booze and visitations from the spirit world, Spanish treasure and skulduggery. Swept along in a rapid sequence of events that often seem too much for a young man to cope with, Matthew makes many wrong decisions. But will he find happiness and, if so, with which of the women with whom he cannot help becoming entangled? Follow Me to Tomorrow is a vivid evocation of life in rural Norfolk in the years surrounding the First World War. The extraordinary events that unfold sometimes seem no more than a shifting background to the permanence of country life, with its down-to-earth but colourful characters. You will meet kind-hearted poachers, dragon wives, benevolent aristocrats and a vicar and a funeral director with a shared penchant for ale and nude bathing. Without ignoring the hardships and tragedies of the early twentieth century, P W Mortimer celebrates the richness and robustness of a countryside community.