England

This Is My England, Part Eight

16th April 2023 Going Postal 1749 Comments

Look at Tolpuddle now, with its neat thatched cottages, its tall chestnuts in splendid flower, all in all as pretty an English village as ever found its way on to a Christmas card, and you [more…]

This Is My England, Part Seven

9th April 2023 Going Postal 1910 Comments

There is one date in history that no Englishman can escape remembering — Battle of Hastings, 1066. So being quite close to the place we thought we would go and see how that famous battlefield [more…]

This Is My England – Part Six

2nd April 2023 Going Postal 1908 Comments

Kent used to be called “the Garden of England.” Perhaps it still is. The garden itself is still there — a mass of snowy blossom just now; but since I last saw it the great [more…]

This Is My England – Part Five

26th March 2023 Going Postal 2332 Comments

If you want to see what a profound and lasting impression the war has left on the face of rural England you should make a point of travelling over that stretch of road that links [more…]

This Is My England, 1950 – Part Four

19th March 2023 Going Postal 2266 Comments

I was awakened that morning by the sudden furious ringing and clanging of bells — a sort of wild, insane music, as if some demented Dickensian sexton had been let loose in the belfry. To [more…]

This Is My England, 1950 – Part Three

12th March 2023 Going Postal 2762 Comments

I have had a particularly soft spot in my heart for Nottingham ever since an evening in June, 1940. There were about a thousand of us, dribs and drabs of a British Expeditionary Force, scooped [more…]

This Is My England, 1950 – Part Two

5th March 2023 Going Postal 2415 Comments

From Haddon Hall to Tideswell is only about ten miles. But to get from one to the other you have to travel across some of the bleakest, wildest, most God-forsaken country in England. On these [more…]

Valuing our land area

27th February 2023 Going Postal 3169 Comments

We’ve forgotten something important I’ve always been a bit of an oddball, so the following may reflect that. But it seems to me that the British people, and perhaps the people of the West in [more…]

This Is My England, 1950 – Part 1

26th February 2023 Going Postal 2244 Comments

Since this journey must begin somewhere, let it begin here in Bakewell with the story of a tart. A Bakewell tart, which, of course — as they are quick to point out — isn’t a [more…]