53 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 there and I wrote a book about it, Sobers six hit perfection at Swansea: That was the Day. Sobers was captaining Nottinghamshire that day, in a… Continue reading
Finding Monet’s smartweed next to a hedge in Wales
How we found one of Monet’s flowers using a mobile phone plant identification app. In 1894 the artist Claude Monet ordered a selection of plants from his new friend Joseph Bory Latour-Marliac, who had recently exhibited plants from his nursery at the World’s Fair in Paris in 1889. One of them, unsurprisingly, was the water… Continue reading
The great (rail) way west – to Pembrokeshire
The holiday express: in 2021 there were no through trains from Paddington to Tenby and West Wales on summer Saturdays, breaking a link which has endured with only a few gaps since 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… Continue reading
How BeaconLit was built – creating a book festival in an English village
Update BeaconLit is back as a mini-festival on Saturday 10 July 2021. The festival, which launched in 2013 and ran every year until the Covid pandemic, was cancelled in 2020. The committee decided Festival 2021 could not go ahead in its usual format of a full day event, with author panels, interviews, workshops etc. But… Continue reading
Pinot Cymru – raise a glass to the vineyards of Wales
I wrote this two summers ago – and I take no crdit for being prophetic. ‘Rugby and male voice choirs may still rule the valleys, but maybe they will toast success with a crisp local rosé or an elegant Pinor Noir in the future.’ And this week (July 6, 2021) a “deliciously fresh” red wine,… Continue reading
How the National Theatre’s Under Milk Wood is the perfect post-lockdown play
“The itinerant, ultra-sociable Thomas would have been the last person to be constrained by social distancing, red and amber lists, and isolation. He was a man of the pub. It’s hard to see how he could have survived as a writer without beer-fuelled social interaction.” Dylan Thomas knew Under Milk Wood was good, even in… Continue reading