Thomas Hardy and The Keeper

Growing up in the West Country of England, it was hard to get away from Thomas Hardy. His books were firmly wedged into the curriculum. Of course, after I moved away, studying first in Canterbury and then living in London, I became nostalgic, immersing myself in the old West Country within his novels. He was definitely an author who could give you a sense of place. Place and belonging is important in The Keeper and Hardy helped with that.

He gets a mention early on when Martha is writing to Dean about the books they have been studying:

Moving into the more modern (ha!) books we read, I loved To Kill a Mockingbird, but found Tess of the D’Urbervilles way too tragic. I enjoyed the West Country locations though, so I tried a couple of his others, The Mayor of Casterbridge and Jude the Obscure. They were tragic too! Couldn’t Thomas Hardy write happy?

Dean points Martha towards a more cheery book, and that leads to a discussion of Hardy's beautiful earlier work. Nothing to do with writing novels or poems, this was when he was working in the graveyard of Saint Pancras Old Church to prepare for a railway extension (the golden era of the railways):

As a young man, Thomas Hardy was working as an engineer for the railways. When they needed land in north London, he had the job of disinterring many of the graves at St Pancras churchyard. If you go there now, you can see a tree that has grown into the gravestones he moved.

This tree becomes one of the connections between Dean and Martha in the book. And later it helps her realise how strong that connection is. I love the Hardy Tree and any time I was in the area I made a point of visiting. But according to Wikipedia, the tree fell in 2022, so even here there is tragedy.

The tree in 2018:

Photos: Hardy statue: Paul Cullen
Hardy tree: A X Wilkinson