5 JANUARY

Leigh Lawson has embraced acting and poetry with the same determination that sustained Marie Lloyd, the music-hall queen whose memorabilia he collects, as Carla Passino discovers

International Velvet was broadcast on Christmas Day on the BBC in the 1980s – filming it was like “grown-up Pony Club camp” with a Burghley frisson, finds Martha Terry

The search for Eddy Merckx’s 1974 Worlds-winning steed was just the start of a cinematic journey for Richard Hoddinott

At 16, I was on top of the world. I was double World Youth champion, I’d been the fastest 14-year-old of all time in Europe, and I already had a shoe contract. At 15, I was UK champion over the 100 an

Some years ago, Colin Matthews – a lifelong Londoner – bought himself a composing retreat on the Somerset/ Dorset borders and half-seriously confessed to fears that the view of cows from his windows ‘