Snowdrops & Allsorts

Taking full advantage of the season I couldn't resist showing these snowdrops again. I'm always reminded of them everytime I see the sides of lanes and corners of gardens liberally carpeted. The photograph was sheer serendipity. Seven years ago we went into the quietness of Horninghold church in Leicestershire on a cold windy day when the sun was very intermittent. My two boys went off to have a fight with brooms they'd found in the cleaning cupboard and I walked up to the altar just as the wind parted the clouds to allow a few seconds of sunlight. Genuine genuflection took place.

    Those who enjoy the idiosyncrasies of Unmitigated England will know of the trilogy of my handbooks that map out such things, and indeed I used this photograph in the third volume English Allsorts, in a chapter called Daffodils & Monsters that describes and pictures a very personal natural history. As incongruously as I could make it, it sits between Cakes & Ale (market towns) and Black & White (monochrome photographers). Elsewhere you will find amongst other Unmitigated subjects Hornby Trains, Brighton Rock and Jaguar XK120s. Still available in all good ironmongers and coalyards, or here. Or even, in complete over-selling, by clicking on it opposite.

All Sorts Day

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.



Thatcher's England

The phrase 'Unmitigated England' comes from John Betjeman's poem Great Central Railway Sheffield Victoria to Banbury. He was in turn quoting Henry James, who used the phrase to describe thatched roofs. So there can possibly be no better example of Unmitigated Englishness than this remote cottage on the Sudbourne estate in Suffolk. The hall has vanished, but all around can be seen perfect examples of the 'picturesque' cottage style, none better than this dwelling on the road from Chillesford to Orford. It's called 'Smokey House', and I've wanted to photograph it for thirty years or more, but it's either been raining, about to rain, or I've been in too much of a hurry to get into the Orford and Butley Oysterage. A truly rural idyll, windows peeping out of the great hump of thatch, runner beans and chickens supplying the shelves of a little wayside hut half tucked away in a hedge. Every time I think about it I imagine lying in bed up in the roof, the sounds of the night creeping in through the dormer window from the surrounding woods.