FOR GENERATIONS the Housmans lived in and around Bromsgrove,
Worcestershire, where several of their ancestral homes remain to
this day. The town of Bromsgrove threads its way by the pattern
of ancient roads through the banks and misty meadows of the
northwest corner of Worcestershire. It is rich with the flavor of old
days, and stretches out like a patchwork quilt laid by Time, the
blocks composed of contrasting designs of new and old dwellings.
Some of the ancient Tudor structures have a unique effect of
propped-up solidarity; their upper stories lean precariously forward
toward the street like the shoulders of old men bent with the weight
of years. Viewed from a distance, they appear to be huddled crook-
edly together, as if the new houses to left and right had pushed them
off balance in the shock of collision with modern progress.

To the southeast, some twenty miles away, Stratford glorifies the
gentle Avon river and commercially immortalizes Shakespeare.
The mystical blue hills of Shropshire curve the horizon to the west.
Birmingham hustles and hums with business fourteen miles to the
northeast, developing the manufactures for which it was noted
even a century ago. Thirty-two miles almost straight east of Broms-
grove spreads the war-scarred city of Coventry, rich in literary and
historical associations.

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