The thin end of the wedge

• Text settings

  Text size

  • Small
  • Medium
  • Large

  Line Spacing

  • Compact
  • Normal
  • Spacious
• Comments
• Share

  Share

  Cressida Connolly

  The thin end of the wedge

  Copy link

  • Linkedin
  • Messenger
  • Email

• The Crocodile by the Door: The Story of a House, a Farm and a Family

  Selina Guinness

  Penguin, pp. 256

Already a subscriber? Log in

This article is for subscribers only

Subscribe today to get 3 months' delivery of the magazine, as well as online and app access, for only £3.

• Weekly delivery of the magazine
• Unlimited access to our website and app
• Enjoy Spectator newsletters and podcasts
• Explore our online archive, going back to 1828

Most popular

Alexander Larman

What happened to the Rishi Sunak I knew at school?

Hidden behind their lifelong closeness is another story, again only glimpsed here, concerning her own childhood. While she is never gung-ho, Guinness doesn’t go in for self-pity or analysis; she just gets on with things, quietly and patiently and with great sympathy and tact.  As luck would have it, she is also a very fine writer with a lovely turn of phrase.

It is worth mentioning that, although the author and her family are related to the brewers of the same name, they have no fortune. The house where Uncle Charles grew up and still lives is tumbling into disrepair; his niece and her new husband, who come to share the house with him, are academics.  No one has any reserves of money. If they did, this would be a very much less engaging book. Or really, there wouldn’t be a book at all: rich people mending broken things isn’t much of a tale (although it compares pretty favourably to much of the current fare served up by reality television producers). Stories need adversity and the overcoming of obstacles and The Crocodile by the Door has plenty.

As a farmer’s wife I am all too familiar with the labyrinthine bureaucratic procedures involved in getting paid to grow food. Coming from the sheltered groves of academe, Guinness finds these surprising. She is not helped in her task by the ancient tenant farmers, whose portraits she draws with restraint. Dublin property sharks circle the land. Trustees stifle innovation. Crucial documents, maps and farm records are kept in old, overstuffed carrier bags, if they are kept at all. The ceiling leaks and the boiler floods. Everything inside the house is falling to pieces.

But the author loves the place. Readers will be delighted that in the end she prevails, and has produced such an engaging book into the bargain.