In 1974, I hitchhiked with my girlfriend Lesley from John o’Groats to Land’s End in 10 days. After 46 years of happy marriage, Lesley died from breast cancer in October 2022. Losing the love of my lif

You wouldn’t guess from the cover design—three songbirds silhouetted over swatches of picturesque Englishness—but Catherine Clarke’s A History of England in 25 Poems hits one of its sweet spots with a

Alice Loxton EleanorA 200-mile walk in search of England’slost queen352pp. Pan Macmillan. £22. Many are commemorated in stone, but few so grandly as Eleanor of Castile (d. 1290). Following her unexpec

PAUL CLIFTON picks ten of the best (and worst), declaring: “There are numerous poetry anthologies on the subject of travel. I have an entire shelf of them. Choosing just ten about railways is highly subjective. Here is my flawed selection: some familiar to everyone and one you might rather forget…”

ny potential reader of A Glastonbury Romance is likely to be put off initially by its sheer size: this brick of a book runs to more than 1,100 pages, containing almost half a million words. Some autho

Catherine Clarke A History of England in 25 Poems400pp. Allen Lane. £25. Mark Forsyth Rhyme and ReasonA short history of poetry and people (forpeople who don’t usually read poetry)368pp. Allen & Unwin