When The Story of Holly and Ivy was first published, it was set in the Buckinghamshire market town of Aylesbury. In later editions the location was switched to the made-up Appleton. Has the book lost something as a result? “And where does your grandmother live?” asks a gentleman in the train compartment. “In Aylesbury”, answers Ivy. “Yes,… Continue reading
Browsing Category Travel
Is Bluestone green enough for national park Pembrokeshire?
I was at Bluestone in Pembrokeshire in December, 2015, on an important weekend. On the Saturday, the 12th, world governments concluded the Paris Climate Agreement. It was a pivotal moment in the story of the world about us. What would we, as individuals, do? What would governments and industries do, to met those targets of… Continue reading →
85 years ago, Patrick Leigh Fermor sets off on his great walk to Constantinople
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 →
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 →
Ferry force – two villages linked by swift boat across the Towy
The ferry Glansteffan has begun regular services across the Towy Estuary in West Wales. For years Llansteffan has been a tantalising prospect for people in Ferryside and the many tourists who pass through on the railway that hugs the coast. So close, with a line of prettily coloured waterside houses and the magnificent ruined Norman… Continue reading →
How Guernsey welcomes the world with Potato Peel Pie
The film was actually shot at locations in London, Bristol and Devon. The scene where German soldiers march through the streets of Guernsey was filmed in Bideford, in Devon. In Bristol, Princes Wharf, alongside a dockside museum, with cranes, steam railway and transit shed, was the location for a 1940s harbour – to represent Weymouth Docks. In London the cast… Continue reading →