The band played, the laughter rang out and talk flowed as freely as the cider. It didn't matter that the fancy dress parade was a bit of a flop (a single game villager turned out in a vintage party dress). Everyone agreed – Laurie would have approved.

This celebration of the life of the writer and poet Laurie Lee, organised to mark the centenary of his birth, took place over a sun-soaked midsummer weekend in his beloved Slad Valley and featured readings, a competition for young writers, an art exhibition and lots of reminiscences about this most English of artists.

It may have become common in the literary world to be a bit sniffy over Lee for what his critics see as a rose-tinted view of life in rural Britain but his former neighbours and visitors to his "jungly, bird-crammed, insect-hopping sun-trap" of a valley in Gloucestershire were having none of it.

Poet and Lee enthusiast Adam Horovitz said: "I think there is a certain snobbery about him. I don't think it is deserved. His writing isn't as simplistic as some people make out. There's a lot of subtlety there and more darkness than many people remember."

The festivities in Slad were officially opened by Lee's daughter, Jessy, who said the day had a "dreamlike" quality her father would have appreciated. Her official duties complete, she placed flowers on Lee's grave at the Holy Trinity church, from which people can enjoy views of the valley and his favourite pub, the Woolpack.

"In my experience he is mostly regarded with a great deal of reverence, admiration and affection," she said. "Some people find it fashionable to criticise his work, but I think they are very much a minority. The considerable interest in Laurie during his centenary year pretty much speaks for itself."

There is a panoply of Lee-flavoured events to celebrate the centenary of his birth, 26 June 1914. A centre point is this week-long Slad Valley festival, which also includes walks around the wooded slopes to the spots he loved most, opportunities to discuss his most famous works, Cider with Rosie and As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning and on Saturday there will be a cider and flamenco festival at the Woolpack, the latter a nod to his adventures walking across Spain.

But it is just one a series of events taking place all year here, in Lee's birthplace of Stroud a few miles down the winding valley road and across Gloucestershire. New editions of the books have been issued and are selling well. A poetry collection that has been out of print has been revived. An adaptation of As I Walked Out on BBC Radio 4 attracted enthusiastic reviews.

Lee pilgrims Mark and Marianne Jennings were paying their respects at his grave at the weekend. Both studied Cider With Rosie at O-level like so many Britons of a certain age. Mark Jennings said: "It's always stayed with me. It's good to see the place he wrote so beautifully about." Their seven-year-old daughter, Isabelle, said she preferred fairy tales, but read the inscription on his stone from his poem April Rise beautifully: "If ever I saw a blessing in the air I see it now in this still early day…"

But these are worrying times in the Slad Valley, where villagers are awaiting the results of a public inquiry over controversial plans to build homes between the village and the town of Stroud, two miles away. Stroud's deputy mayor John Marjoram, a long-standing Green party councillor, said it was an irony that such a development was being discussed in Lee's centenary. "His was a simpler age, a better age," he said.

Poet, pacifist and printer Dennis Gould half agreed but also pointed out that the horrors of the Spanish civil war feature strongly in As I Walked Out and the aftermath of the first world war tinges Cider with Rosie. "Yes, life was simpler but it was harsh as well. It's a different world now but Lee then was also writing about a world that was vanishing."

Villagers Ian Collins and Hester Eaton are living with their young sons, George and William, in the cottage Lee grew up in and immortalised in Cider with Rosie. "We do get some people come knocking on the door. We let them have a look around," said Collins. They recently allowed one French fan to finish the book sitting in the garden.

Collins' personal memories of Lee are simple: "I remember him as an awesome guy in the pub. When he spoke everyone listened. I was only 17 or 18 and he was getting on but I just remember thinking how cool he was."