Kmflett's Blog

Where Eric Hobsbawm & E P Thompson spent summer holidays

The socialist historians Eric Hobsbawm and E P Thompson both owned cottages in a fairly remote part of North Wales near Snowdonia, the Croesor Valley. This is a practice much frowned on by many people that live there all the time, although of course the point is invariably made that it does boost the local economy (while making it more difficult for others to get homes to live in full time).

In her recent book Meet Me in Buenos Aires (2019)Marlene Hobsbawm gives some more detail about the summer holiday experience of both her partner Eric Hobsbawm and Dorothy and E P Thompson.

‘We usually went up to Wales during holidays, half-terms and all of August. We were always surrounded by friends.. in fact the whole area should have been called Cambridge in the Hills… Historians Edward Thompson and his wife Dorothy Thompson and family were neighbours in a farmhouse over the hill. They had been many visitors (often historians from the USA) and people liked to say one could hear more typewriters clicking than birds chirping in our valley.

A way of life I suspect that given the pressures of modern academic life is now largely past. The pressures of e-mail and smartphones would surely defeat the desire for academic isolation.

Update

Thanks to those who have reminded me that Hobsbawm’s Interesting Times has a section on North Wales holidays. Richard Evens biography, Eric Hobsbawm: A Life in History, also has several pages. He notes that on occasion the Hobsbawms would venture to Portmeiron for beach and sea. Marx and Engels were keen on seaside holidays- Margate and Eastbourne respectively. Whether this was what motivated the Hobsbawms is unclear.

There is little information on the Thompsons. There are likely to be references in his correspondence but unfortunately its locked up at the Bodelian for some years hence.