DECEMBER 7, 2018 Irongate Wharf, the exact spot where Patrick Leigh Fermor left England in the Stadthouder Willem, as he recounted in A Time of Gifts 85 years ago, on the ebbing afternoon of Saturday, December 9th, 1933, a young man of 19, shrugging off a hangover, with a backpack borrowed from a friend, walked under… Continue reading
Posts by Gareth Huw Davies
The great (rail) way west – to Pembrokeshire
The holiday express: through trains will run from Paddington to Tenby and West Wales in summer of 2019, continuing a link which began in the days of Queen Victoria. “If there be any one train more than another, the sight of which stirs the patriotic pride of an enthusiastic Great Westernite, it is the Tenby express leaving… Continue reading →
Turkish writer Elif Şafak at Cambridge Literary Festival
Elif Şafak talked to Maureen Freely at the Cambridge Literary Festival, Saturday, November 24th Her latest book Three Daughters of Eve is set in Oxford and Istanbul and focusses on three Muslim women, several men, and one big question. Two university cities, both equally celebrated. But one of them far outpaces the other as… Continue reading →
Celebrate Stonehenge’s saviours, but don’t ignore the bigger story
100 years today (26 October 1918) Cecil Chubb, a Wiltshire barrister and landowner, and his wife, Mary, gave Stonehenge to the nation. Saving the monument from who knows what damage and desecration to the stones and the surrounding land is a public spirited gesture to be celebrated. But even under government control, Stonehenge is not… Continue reading →
Sobers six hit perfection at Swansea: That was the Day
50 years today, on Saturday, August 31st, 1968, Garfield Sobers became the first player in the history of cricket to hit every ball of an over for six. I was lucky enough to have been there. Sobers was captaining Nottinghamshire that day, in a county game against Glamorgan. His feat, which no other batsman had… Continue reading →
Garfield Sobers – genius on a Swansea cricket pitch
Garfield Sobers, by any estimation, was a genius. England fast bowler Fred Trueman described him as a “sublime left-hand batsman” who was “one of the greatest cricketers ever to have graced the game, certainly the greatest all-rounder”. This is the sixth in a series of extracts I am publishing in the lead up to the 50th… Continue reading →