Ah, King Arthur. I’m sure he was here. Somewhere. I’m standing high above Southern England on the west end of the Marlborough Downs at dusk searching for a Dark Ages super hero. Everyday life continues far below me, in the evening deluge of traffic up and down the M4. In the distance a late… Continue reading
Browsing Category Travel
Early risers walk easy on Turkey’s newest long distance path
Long-distance paths. Now aren’t they a particularly British thing? Not really. France has a most intricate spiders web of ways, the Chemins de Grandes Randonnées, threading throughout the countryside, marked with regular flashes of colour painted onto rocks, on buildings, posts, or anything that stays still. Spain draws the various converging arms of the St… Continue reading →
Shrewsbury, birthplace of Charles Darwin – handsome border outpost
February 2019. This is an update of a piece I wrote in 2010. Charles Darwin, Shrewsbury’s most famous son, was born in 1809 in this handsome border outpost within an almost circular loop of the River Severn. I took the train to one “England’s finest Tudor towns” and one of England’s most appealing day trip and… Continue reading →
In the house where Dylan Thomas set “A Child’s Christmas in Wales”
Dickens started our passion for Christmas books, but who has time for the whole of Pickwick Papers, unless you just read the snowy, seasonal scenes? A Christmas Carol is a possibility, but, weighed down with Victorian sentimentality, it lends itself to cinematic or theatrical adaptation rather then a comfy read in an armchair. I turn to the accessible… Continue reading →
Is Bluestone green enough for national park Pembrokeshire?
I was at Bluestone in Pembrokeshire in December, 2015, on an important weekend. On the Saturday, the 12th, world governments concluded the Paris Climate Agreement. It was a pivotal moment in the story of the world about us. What would we, as individuals, do? What would governments and industries do, to met those targets of… Continue reading →
How Guernsey welcomes the world with Potato Peel Pie
The film was actually shot at locations in London, Bristol and Devon. The scene where German soldiers march through the streets of Guernsey was filmed in Bideford, in Devon. In Bristol, Princes Wharf, alongside a dockside museum, with cranes, steam railway and transit shed, was the location for a 1940s harbour – to represent Weymouth Docks. In London the cast… Continue reading →