Homecoming

Homecoming Master storyteller Michael Morpurgo revisits the landscape of memories, the idyllic village of Bradwell, his childhood home fifty years before. The seaside village is peopled by quirky characters such as the three Stebbing sisters, the white moustachioed Colonel Burton and Bennie the village thug. But the heroine of this story is the serene Mrs Pettigrew, who lives in a railway carriage down in the marshes with her dogs, donkey, bees and hens and befriends the young Michael. Industrial reality intrudes, however, when plans are made to build a nuclear power station on the marshes, endangering Mrs Pettigrew's home and the gulls, kestrels and thousands of insects and plants that also belong there. A village battle ensues for and against the power station, and the young Michael finds himself caught up in the sad fate of Mrs Pettigrew and the landscape of his boyhood.