Help me find this children's time slip novel I read in the 80s/90s please

[TheIncredibleBookEatingManchot]

I'm afraid I don't remember much about it, except that I loved it so I this could be pretty tough...

It was about a girl who I think was on holiday in a small village. It was definitely somewhere quite rural. Somehow she slips into the past, I think she goes back and forth between past and present in the book.

Towards the end the villagers in the past have a party or fête of some kind in a field. A young couple in love are dancing together. Then the girl's back in the present and she sees an oak tree that the young couples' initials were carved in long ago and there's something about somewhere that man will always be dancing with his sweetheart.

I read it in primary school so it can't have been published any later than 1991. I think it had quite an old feel about it though, so it could have been published much earlier than that.

This has been bugging me for years and years. I thought I had found it a few years ago when out of nowhere the words "A Stitch in Time by Penelope Lively" came into my head and I googled it and discovered it actually existed. But although there are some similarities, girl on holiday, time slip, oak tree, there are no dancing villagers carving their initials. I read A Traveller in Time by Alison Uttley recently after seeing it mentioned somewhere on Mumsnet, but though I think the book I remember had a similar feel to it it's not the one.

Please, please can anyone help me?

I’m just going to throw in Dianne Wynne Jones’ The Homeward Bounders ... not time slip exactly but very much brought to mind by the vibe of the thread and the other DWJ references. I wish she were still here.

@WitchWife I’m going to dig out the House on the Strand - I read it as a teenager and found it strange and moving, enough to keep it through several moves though never to re-read it. Now’s the time!

I think modern children’s books are still great and kids are so lucky now. Back in the day you hit 11 and there wasn’t a great deal to bridge the gap between children’s books and adult books.

@AlbertCampion I adore Alan Garner! Red shift really stayed with me. his books all links up emotionally for me

Feel I have found my people! Completely agree about Diana Wynne Jones - she is just wonderful. For my birthday I got a Folio edition of Howl's Moving Castle which is just beautiful. It has a foreword by Marcus Sedgwick who is a fantastic children's author, too - I really recommend The Ghosts of Heaven and Midwinterblood by him. Again, not time slip but in that spirit.

Has anyone read Tim Kennemore’s Changing Times? Any good? I read The Fortunate Few as a child and remember it being brilliant, but didn’t have my own copy and it was decades ago. I’ve been googling and for a start the author is a woman which I definitely didn’t realise at the time. Also found an ancient interview quoting her saying ‘I always wanted to be published by Faber. They had all my favourite authors - Antonia Forest, Helen Cresswell, Catherine Storr."

I love Changing times! I have my old copy and reread it regularly. Just ordered the fortunate few...

Thank you for all the ideas on this wonderful thread (even if it will cost me fortune )

Loved a time slip novel as a child. I'm pleasantly reliving Tom's Midnight Garden as ds doing it at school, loved the BBC version in the 80s. Also loved the Green Knowe books, especially the witchcraft one and the TV series from the 80s too and Moondial and Narnia! They were good dramas, they don't do them like that now do they? Ds couldn't believe we had to wait a week to see the next episode back in the day

Was disappointed with recent film of The Chimneys of Green Knowe as they changed the story

Oh yes, when DS and I watched the whole series of Come Back Lucy on YouTube (before one of the episodes was taken down ) he was shocked at the idea of waiting a whole week to see the next instalment. And even more horrified at the thought that if you missed it you'd missed it for good.

I've not heard of Tim Kennemore before but she's got great taste in authors. Catherine Storr's Marianne Dreams might not be a time-slip novel but it's certainly haunting. I think I had nightmares about the sinister rocks with eyes clustering around the little house Marianne and Mark were trapped in.

Antonia Forest was amazing, wasn't she? Her characters are so real and so natural that they transcend the awkwardness of being shoehorned into different themes (spy novel, school stories, drug smuggling teddy boys, Vatican II reforms etc) and the characters ageing about two years in 40 years of real time.

DD and I often debate what happened to various Marlows and are quite certain we would know them instantly if they turned up in real life (we're not giving Ginty or Lawrie house-room if they do). I wish the manuscript of her last unfinished Marlow novel hadn't vanished. It's thought she destroyed it when she realised her health wouldn't be up to finishing it, but a fragment by Antonia Forest would be more satisfying than so many other writers' finished works.

Ah you lot are brilliant!

For years I have wracked my brain trying to remember the name of an amazing book I read as a child. I loved it that much that I immediately started it over when I finished it!

My problem was, I couldn't remember the storyline l could remember images (from my imagination) and a feeling of contentment, but not any plot points to either Google or ask here.

It was Moondial! The moment I saw it mentioned on this thread my heart leapt!

I'm off to order a copy

Great thread. I'm glad you got your answer @TheIncredibleBookEatingManchot

Can anybody help with an old book (was old when I read it in the 80s) I could swear it was called Dominic but I can't find it. I think it was written by a man.
A boy (Dominic?) was given some money and he bought a puppy he called Benedict, and a pony called Valerian. It was lovely and old fashioned and sweet.
My father gave it to me. It was one of his childhood books, and he was born in 1929.
I remember him saying he thought I might like it, but the boy was a bit of a goody-goody!

A time slip novel that I remember enjoying that doesn't seem to be that well known is Robinsheugh by Eileen Dunlop (also wrote A Flute in Mayferry street, which I also enjoyed).

Also an Antonia Forest fan here.

Boy being a goody goody was my father's words, not mine. I loved it!
I never read any of the time slip books except Tom's Midnight Garden, which we did at school.
Need to look some of these up!

@Embroideredstars

Thank you for all the ideas on this wonderful thread (even if it will cost me fortune )

Loved a time slip novel as a child. I'm pleasantly reliving Tom's Midnight Garden as ds doing it at school, loved the BBC version in the 80s. Also loved the Green Knowe books, especially the witchcraft one and the TV series from the 80s too and Moondial and Narnia! They were good dramas, they don't do them like that now do they? Ds couldn't believe we had to wait a week to see the next episode back in the day

Was disappointed with recent film of The Chimneys of Green Knowe as they changed the story

I had no idea there was a film til now! Sad to say it looks like the usual Julian Fellowes load of old toot - probably glosses over the anti-racism in the book too. Was it any good apart from the changed ending?

Don't think I watched it all tbh -.not sure it was any good