Young at Heart', and the other a poem of 'On Seeing a Baby Rabbit in the Cottage Garden'. And, although as a young child I had no reason to appreciate them, it is also significant that a number of her better-known short stories were set in the past, with the earliest – 'The Old Maid', 'Lady Mary' and 'Her Lover' – all dating from the late 1890s. It was only later that the majority of her stories took place in the present day, and then only one at a time. This must have given the impression that, as a writer, she was living off her creative past rather than her present. Despite this feeling that she was living off her imagination rather than on it, there is no doubt that Ellen was a creative force to be reckoned with. Her brother Francis was the first to appreciate this, but soon others did too. Ellen never wanted to be pigeonholed as 'the poor relation' but she would willingly sit down and chat with anyone who was interested in her subjects of poetry and nature. In fact, the majority of her subjects were nature. Yet the nature that she saw, particularly on those lonely walks around the village of Upton, would have been largely ignored by the majority of her contemporaries. She described it so accurately and so evocatively that it was truly unique, as is proved by a book that was written a hundred years later and remains popular to this day. Many people thought it was a novel, but it was written by Frances Lambert, a very good friend of the Tennysons. I remember coming across an edition of it in the cottage we used to rent in Surrey during the 1950s and wondering how a book could have been written about Upton that had been published decades earlier. With Frances's help, it is possible to paint a portrait of the Upton in which Ellen lived. The little village is on the River Blyth, around half a mile north of the ancient city of York, and some sixty miles north-east of central London. The house that Ellen and her family lived in was on the very edge of the village and had been built to keep as much land as possible in the family. It was called Upton Court Farm, and though in the main part of the country it was a big property, at one time a farm would have been far larger. The original farm was an enclave in a larger agricultural property, but many of the original buildings and outbuildings were still intact by the time Ellen's mother inherited them in the 1880s. The farmyard must have been a hive of activity with the farmers' vehicles, carts, bales, dogs, hens, pigs and cows all in place. In the house, Ellen had four small rooms: three bedrooms, a kitchen, and an office which she had turned into a library with an enormous variety of bookshelves in order to encourage her to read everything from the King James Bible to Wordsworth, Tennyson and Shakespeare, to Dickens, Thackeray, Gissing, the Brontë sisters, Keats, Shelley, Byron, and many more. In addition to her regular walks, Ellen loved her local beauty spots. Even in a small place such as Upton, the mountains were a part of life. The River Blyth is not only Upton's geographical and spiritual centre but also its major source of interest and inspiration. The beautiful valley with its lakes, wooded hills and rushing streams could have inspired any number of poets, including Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey and Shelley. Ellen found it inspirational. But that was not the only beauty spot in the parish, for it was also blessed with more local natural attractions as well. The village of Upton was also the home of a small village of mills, just as in the past the local smithy had been in every small village. The mill ponds, now a haven for wild swans, ducks and geese, were once the focal point for the village and the reason why anyone might have come here. Today it is difficult to imagine a village with as few facilities as Upton had at the time of Ellen's childhood. There were no shops, just a few small stores in the village. When they were alive, the two village post offices and the post office van that had an office in each village had been removed. In a place without these services, the family would have been completely cut off from the rest of society and the rest of the world. There was just the village of Upton itself, and people from a distance who would have had to travel specially to visit. So it was a village with a very clear sense of community; its very remoteness strengthened its cohesion and sense of togetherness. But at the same time, the local church and the Anglican church were a strong presence. It would not have been possible for Ellen to live in Upton and not have attended church, particularly at the time when she was growing up. While she later turned away from religion, at the time of her birth religion would have been part of her everyday life and a major inspiration in her writing. The Upton countryside would have provided Ellen with an endless stream of subjects and ideas for her writing, not only for the children's stories but also for her poetry. It is a truism that children are especially receptive to nature. They need it and have to interact with it daily. That daily interaction is as vital for adults as it is for children, but it is the adults who have the skills and the experience to draw upon to compose what goes into their written work. Ellen was one who did this in her own unique way. She had more than a passing interest in the natural world, not only in Upton but in the wider countryside around her, but she was not an expert on it and did not have an academic background. Her experiences with nature as a child gave her a special insight into its wonder and beauty, and helped her to appreciate it. In a way, it was her way of expressing it. It also gave her many subjects for her writing, many of which, unlike the rest of the world, she was passionate about. She was not a nature writer like Mary Webb, for example, who lived not far from her and published under her maiden name of Ida Noble, but the two of them worked in the same period. Yet their worlds were not the same. In fact, some would say that Mary Webb's work was more realistic, more factual, perhaps more realistic but not as beautiful. There are plenty of people in the world who do not see themselves reflected in the world they inhabit, people who have their sights set on different horizons. But what made both Ellen and Mary Webb special were the things they saw in their worlds, the things that they cared about and understood. As well as a passion for nature, Ellen also had a love for words. Words were for her an important tool in creating her world. They are also an integral part of her legacy. When she read a book or was inspired by an experience, she wrote about it. Her first published poem was in 1891, her first book was published in 1894, and her first play in 1901. In an age when most of us have access to the media of communication in far greater numbers than ever before, her work is not just unusual; it is unique. She is not only the first English woman to write a drama; she is also the only one who didn't write about society, fashion and the human condition. Although born in Victorian times, she felt more at home in the previous century. She was an early exponent of realism, not only as an artist but also in her style and attitude to life. She wrote more than three hundred stories, over four hundred poems, two plays, and some fifty articles for _Home Chat_ , a journal she worked for from 1894 to 1898. At one time she was not only the bestselling author in her genre of children's literature but was also by far the bestselling author in the _Home Chat_ series. She was already famous when she died in 1912, but even after her death her work continued to be discovered. It is not surprising that a number of her stories are still remembered today. Another side to the child that Ellen created in her short stories was that of the outcast, the rebel, and she often used animals to personify the characters. Many of her stories deal with animals, and one in particular, 'The Lamb', reflects the view that it was children's imagination and imagination in general that gave them a special sensitivity to nature, that they knew intuitively that nature was not real, but was just a fairy story dressed up in beautiful clothes. In his book _The Poet of the Heart_ , Paul Delany explains: 'Children have an instinctive rapport with nature and its moods and spirits.' _The Lamb_ was first published in _Home Chat_ in 1898. I saw it in its original form in an old copy of the magazine and later on the Internet, but it was first published in _The Wonder Book_ in 1905. I do not know if it was rewritten for children, but Ellen had also written another story, one of her very best, called 'The Story of St Bernard', about a mouse who was part of an animal kingdom and tried to save an animal from persecution. She had included it in a collection of stories called _The White Pet_ , published by Nelson in 1895. Although only part of the magazine's name, _The White Pet_ had a child's and childlike quality to it. It included a cartoon strip and a feature on how to teach children good manners. So