The Captain's Apprentice

A sadistic murder and the staggering words of a song drive Davison's obsession to unravel this vivid story of lives, landscapes and musical inspiration. No stone is left unturned in the meticulous gathering. Her gift is a work of love and infinite care

Keggie Carew, Costa Award-winning author of DADLAND

This is a hugely intriguing, sensitively woven and at times unexpectedly moving book. What begins as an investigation into one English folk song and one twentieth-century English composer's interaction with it spirals outwards into a galaxy of related tales, discoveries, insights and surprises. It is written from the heart, an elegy to lost landscapes, to nearly forgotten communities and their cultural legacies, relived and newly honoured in the pages of this thoroughly absorbing book

Howard Goodall, author of THE STORY OF MUSIC

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and its weaving of biography, social history and folk song

Steve Roud, author of FOLK SONG IN ENGLAND

Davison's evocative, far from linear approach does great service to the composer

Literary Review

Animated, entertaining . . . quietly sensitive to ironies and ambiguities without being pretentious, presenting a richly complex picture of a subject that can all too easily be shrouded in a sentimental haze

Daily Telegraph

The book makes for a quirky, fascinating read. Davison excels in evoking English landscapes, especially in Vaughan Williams's beloved fen country

Christopher Hart, The Sunday Times

The Captain's Apprentice explores a more profound and complex seam of folk discovery, and concentrates on a single life-changing episode in Vaughan Williams' life... [it is] well written and researched

Ian Thomson, Financial Times