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It's amazing what you can discover in the seemingly well-trodden landscape of one's own locality. I've been out there on the highways and byways of Leicestershire within a handful of miles of my home, photographing, painting, and just generally gorging on the sheer delights of my patch of countryside this summer. With a little time on my hands yesterday afternoon I decided to go down a lane that joins the villages of Allexton and Stockerston, both right up against the border with Rutland. You wouldn't go down it unless you lived on it, were making for the Sweethedges Farm Tea Shop or were hopelessly lost. And so I saw, as if for the first time, this big corrugated iron barn. With the addition of a crow-stepped frontage that one normally sees on 1930's garages with a row of globed petrol pumps lined-up in front. No fuel-hungry motorists here, the nearest main road is the A47 preparing itself for Wardley Hill a couple of fields away over the Eye Brook.
Inside it was empty apart from some odd bits of agricultural detritus and the obligatory lone sparrow chirping up in the apex of the roof. It reminded me of a photograph I snapped once as I walked down a platform at Kings Cross station.
It's quite fortuitous that I came across this pastoral peculiar now, as there's a notice attached to a fence that told me planning permission is being sought for building on that empty patch in front of the barn. So I do hope it survives, both for all those who love this kind of thing but more particularly for those who are annoyed by its crouching presence.
It all seems so long ago now. A cold lunchtime in late January, with us coming out of a very French wine bar just off the Charing Cross Road and me blinking at the light as I watched my publisher cycle quickly off into the traffic. Leaving me wondering "What have I done?". You see, it was January this year and somewhere between one libation and the next I'd said "Of course I can do it by the end of July". But I did, and I have to say that amongst all my books this is the one I've enjoyed putting together the most. And it's out today.
Everything became a pleasure. Pouring over Ordnance maps to find ruined Norfolk churches, talking to a very attractive driver of a new Heatherwick Routemaster in Victoria, having deep meaningful conversations with the Tiptree Jam people, polishing-up a Hornby O Gauge Fyffes Banana truck, turning up in a back street of Abingdon at a couldn't-be-bettered moment, remembering unprovoked attacks made on me by a chicken, attempting to whittle a list down to just three James Ravilious photographs, lying on a shingle beach in Aldeburgh thinking about my first pint of Adnams.
And the kindness of people. Edward Milward Oliver for sending me fantastic stills of Raymond Hawkey film titles, Tony Meeuwissen for sending me gorgeous examples of his outstanding work, Tom Harris for letting me crawl all over his newly-restored 1952 Jaguar XK120. Clive Aslet for writing such an insightful preface, Richard Gregory for meticulously and patiently making sure the whole thing got printed satisfactorily- which it was, by the exceptional Conti Tipocolor in Florence. And the inimitable David Campbell (the Charing Cross Road peddler) for well, another brilliant lunch, making it all happen and then just letting me get on with it. So many incredible people helped, I do hope I remembered you all in my 'thanks' bit at the back.
Your local bookshop will of course at this very minute be putting shed loads in their windows, but in any case you can read more here.
In accordance with my New Year resolution to try and stop driving by interesting things without photographing them, I give you the remains of an old cottage in Blaston, Leicestershire. For years it has been covered in ivy, and the ground surrounding it a heaven of tangled undergrowth from which sprouted a few beehives. "I really must hop over the gate and photograph that" I muttered to myself every time I drove by. The thing is it's very near my home, and I see it virtually every day. So there was always another time. Until last week, when I saw that the ground had been cleared and levelled, and an ominous planning application poster was tied to a metal five bar gate. Last chance then, so I saw the other side of the cottage for the first time. It was like seeing an old friend suddenly stripped of their clothing, if you'll forgive my doubtful analogy. Just the bare bones really, but nevertheless an interesting object lesson on various building materials. I'm so glad I stopped and recorded it. For certain it will never be seen like this again.
I do hope regular readers aren't getting too tired of Unmitigated England being an Unmitigated Quiz at present. But just think about it as leaving the central heating on low so that the house doesn't freeze up. The New Year (I've just decided) will be the start of all the usual things you've come to expect and been deprived of: corrugated iron, fag packets, Vimto bottles etc. With a Christmas Special of course. In the meantime, how about this?
In accordance with my New Year resolution to try and stop driving by interesting things without photographing them, I give you the remains of an old cottage in Blaston, Leicestershire. For years it has been covered in ivy, and the ground surrounding it a heaven of tangled undergrowth from which sprouted a few beehives. "I really must hop over the gate and photograph that" I muttered to myself every time I drove by. The thing is it's very near my home, and I see it virtually every day. So there was always another time. Until last week, when I saw that the ground had been cleared and levelled, and an ominous planning application poster was tied to a metal five bar gate. Last chance then, so I saw the other side of the cottage for the first time. It was like seeing an old friend suddenly stripped of their clothing, if you'll forgive my doubtful analogy. Just the bare bones really, but nevertheless an interesting object lesson on various building materials. I'm so glad I stopped and recorded it. For certain it will never be seen like this again.
I do hope regular readers aren't getting too tired of Unmitigated England being an Unmitigated Quiz at present. But just think about it as leaving the central heating on low so that the house doesn't freeze up. The New Year (I've just decided) will be the start of all the usual things you've come to expect and been deprived of: corrugated iron, fag packets, Vimto bottles etc. With a Christmas Special of course. In the meantime, how about this?
