The words are easy but the meaning isn’t.

I rather agreed with this sentiment, expressed by the Cheshire-based author Alan Garner, who I met last week at his home near Alderley Edge.

It was a long and slightly rambling interview at times but the elderly author did make a few important points about the link between writer and landscape.

Landscape has shaped him, and hence his writing, since childhood. He describes it as “a kind of spiritual geography.”

You can read the story as part of a Visit England supplement in The Guardian.

One anecdote that didn’t make the edit was the story about how he came to buy his medieval, timber-framed house (pictured above) in 1957 for £510. At the time, he was still living at home in Alderley Edge.

“When I told my dad, he pursed his lips and said, ‘That’s a way’.”

Read the full story Folklore and fantasy in the Peak District.

And post your comments about Alan Garner and his work below.