When the new year is welcomed in, we hope for good fortune in the months that lie ahead. But 25 years ago, right across the British countryside, good fortune was nowhere to be seen. Instead, 2001 was

HELEN PERCY is a shepherdess in the Perthshire farming community. She finds herself in this peaceful line of work after a tough past as a Church of Scotland minister, but this drastic change of scener

From the Apennine Mountains to ‘the end of the land’ at Cape Finisterre, Louis D Hall and his horse Sasha trekked untrodden partisan paths across four mountain ranges. Guided by strangers and nature’s clues, it was fulfilment of a childhood dream inspired by Don Quixote . Here, the author shares two extracts that give a glimpse into this wilder way of life

WOULD you look at the man!” Maggie said. She wasn’t much to look at herself, being as black as sin from the coal dust. She’d just finished a shift at the colliery screens, picking lumps of coal out of

WHAT was the man thinking of when he did his shopping? Jessie thought. Two huge, brown paper parcels spilled food on to the kitchen table. Enough to feed a family for a fortnight at least. Slices of t

Guess where we went last summer? A two-week tour that took in the UK’s first Dark Sky Park, as well as its largest forest, the world’s smallest post office, the First World War’s largest munitions fac