ON THE ROOF

An excellent beautifully written book Patrick Galbraith Sunday Times A rich and hugely enjoyable celebration of the local the vernacular and traditional a beautifully written craftsman s memoir Daily MailThatched roofs are like living organisms each one a web of repair replacement and alteration shaped dressed and re moulded by every pair of hands that works on it Thatching is one of the world s oldest crafts an ancient trade that roots us in nature as Tom Allen discovered when he quit an office job to become an apprentice in Devon Now a master of the trade in On the Roof he goes in search of its history and future meeting fellow thatchers from the son of a lobster fisherman who thatches with a dune grass in the Hebrides to a Syrian refugee who found peace among the seagrass roofs of Denmark to one of the first women to master Japan s 5 000 year old thatching tradition Eye opening beautifully told and revealing a tradition hand shaped over centuries On the Roof is a story of how we live with the land and how we have chosen to treat it