NO FINER Life, a play about unsung farming heroes George and Elizabeth Henderson by Graham Harvey stops off in Stroud this June at St Laurence’s Church.

Graham, who is the agricultural editor and writer of more than 600 episodes of The Archers, has a love and knowledge of rural matters.

No Finer Life digs to the roots of that love, telling the true story of Elizabeth Henderson, a remarkable young woman from Ilminster who, after she left school, joined the Women’s Land Army, and of the book that changed her life, The Farming Ladder by George Henderson.

The play tells the story of how George and Elizabeth met, fell in love and campaigned for smaller farms run in the traditional way which, they believed, were a solution for Britain’s food shortages during the Second World War, and beyond.

Farming may have changed dramatically after the war, but Harvey believes that the Hendersons’ vision is as relevant today as it was then.

He said: “The Hendersons have much to teach us about our relationship with the land and the food we buy. Many flaws are emerging from our system of modern industrial agriculture – soil erosion, flooding, pesticide contamination. Who’s to say George’s creative approach won’t be equally inspiring to a new generation in post-Brexit Britain?

“For me Elizabeth and George are unsung heroes. I read George’s book in my student days. By that time it was over 30 years old. But, like Elizabeth, I was inspired by it. In a land of factory farms, farm amalgamations and relentless mechanisation, it presented an alternative vision; a countryside of family farms, thriving villages and teeming wildlife. For George farming was essentially an art rather than a science. The first aim of farming must always be to live in harmony with nature, he wrote.”

The show will open with a short reading of poems of farming life by Stroud poet Adam Horovitz, who has, for the last year, been the poet in residence for the Pasture-fed Livestock Association.

No Finer Life will then be performed and there will be a Q&A with Graham Harvey afterwards, in which he will answer questions about the play, the book and lives that inspired it, and The Archers.

  •  No Finer Life is at St Laurence’s Church, Stroud from 7.30 p.m on June 12. Tickets £10 or £9 concessions, and are available from Trading Post Records in Stroud, or on the door.