Literature
A Letter From India
After qualifying, I’d worked in Basildon for four years before deciding that there was more to life than staring into people’s mouths. I’d met a girl and we decided that we would give up our [more…]
Postcard
19th Century
Postcard from Birmingham, Part Six
In recent weeks we have allowed ourselves to be distracted by summer riots, 1980s football matches and pop concerts, the Falkland Islands and even the delivery of mail to the South Pole at Christmas. Puffins [more…]
Hobbies
In the Fens
It takes a week to cycle from Penzance to Berwick. It took me 40 years. Because on the way, I wanted to include every town in England, in what amounted to some two years of [more…]
20th Century
Postcard From Birmingham, Part Five
There are two schools of thought, volunteer for everything, never volunteer for anything. I knew a chap sent to the South Atlantic. At Mount Pleasant airfield in what the Guinness Book of Records describes as [more…]
History
Postcard from Saint Nicholas
Christmas is coming, the geese are getting fat, Keir Starmer is stealing pennies from the old man’s hat, and we continue our journey around the Isles of Scilly. Tresco was once called St Nicholas, or [more…]
20th Century
Postcard From Birmingham, Part Four
Earlier this year, as my wife and I passed Birmingham’s Town Hall during our day trip from the North, we hummed Mendelssohn’s Elijah which debuted in the city’s triennial music festival of 1846. At that [more…]
Hobbies
Rossendale
It takes a week to cycle from Penzance to Berwick. It took me 40 years. Because on the way, I wanted to include every town in England, in what amounted to some two years of [more…]
19th Century
Postcard From Birmingham, Part Three
Chamberlain Square Having checked out the Council House and Town Hall during our day trip to Birmingham, myself and Mrs AWS nip around the back and into Chamberlain Square, the centrepiece of which is the [more…]
Arts
Postcard From Birmingham, Part Two
There should be a law against circular railway stations, especially those with exits at each point of the compass. The danger is, once outside, visitors don’t know where they are or in what direction they’re [more…]