20th Century
This Is My England, Part Eight
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…]
England
20th Century
This Is My England, Part Seven
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…]
20th Century
This Is My England – Part Six
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…]
20th Century
This Is My England – Part Five
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…]
20th Century
This Is My England, 1950 – Part Four
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…]
20th Century
This Is My England, 1950 – Part Three
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…]
20th Century
This Is My England, 1950 – Part Two
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…]
Arts
Valuing our land area
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…]
20th Century
This Is My England, 1950 – Part 1
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…]