THIS year marks 100 years since Flora Thompson and her family arrived in Liphook to run the Post Office on London Road, which served both the village and the huge army encampment at Bramshott Chase.

The Thompsons lived in Liphook from 1916 until 1927 and Flora wrote the first guide to Liphook and Bramshott in 1925. The prose throughout is unmistakably Flora Thompson and puts East Hampshire on the map alongside the timeless classic Larkrise to Candleford.

Longmoor Ranges and Weavers Down - above Old Thorns and Forest Mere - are immortalised in The Peverel Papers, a little-known book compiled from articles written by Flora for The Catholic Fireside magazine in the 1920s, which enters the world of closely observed natural history and the solitude and beauty of the local landscape in the early 20th Century.

Heatherley, first published as a book by John Owen Smith in 1998, is a fictional account of Flora’s years (1898-1902) living and working at the post office in Crossways Road, Grayshott. It celebrates the surrounding countryside alongside a young woman’s view of life in Grayshott at that time. A much more colourful era than our own when the author of Sherlock Holmes might be found in deep conversation with the local knife grinder and china riveter, who travelled the lanes in his donkey cart with his wife going on before chanting: “Any old razors or scissors to grind, Mr Tidy’s coming behind.”

These and other publications were on display when Julia Mayo gave a talk on the life of Flora Thompson, in Liss on Saturday. The event at the Triangle Centre came two weeks prior to Headley Theatre Club’s touring production of Keith Dewhurt’s play Larkrise – first performed at The National Theatre, in 1974.

“In the round” acting complimented by musicians and singers brings to life the culture and daily round of existence in the English countryside in the late 19th Century.

The Lark Rise tour starts at The Triangle Centre on Friday, July 8, with a show at Liphook village hall next Saturday, July 9. Both events start at 8pm.

For tickets, call The Triangle Centre on 01730 301000 or Headley Theatre Club on 01428 717358.

Further performances can be seen at The Rural Life Centre in Tilford, Butser Ancient Farm at Chalton near Petersfield, Haslemere Museum, and Headley Village Hall.