Backwards to Britain

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The Britons have done too much damage. If we don't defeat them now, we will have to leave these islands and all the riches they contain. We must end their revolt once and for all.”

Before the Romans arrived there was no written language in Britain. They changed all that by teaching important Britons how to read and write and how to speak the Roman language – Latin. And even today, two thousand years later, a lot of our words come from Latin, like ‘enormous’ and ‘victory’ and ‘lavatory’! The rural values expressed in the garden cities were a political mantra too. Stanley Baldwin The dominating political figure of the inter war years clearly saw the importance of England’s rural heritage. The First World War had a transforming effect on Baldwin’s outlook and opinions and on his political career. He was too old to fight and in 1916, with a healthy inheritance turned to politics with a determination to serve his country in a different capacity. In an important speech in 1931 he laid out his motivations for entering politics. He said that ‘after four years of slaughter and destruction many times four years would be needed to repair even part of what had been lost… and after such a storm should there not be calm, and would not the sun come out and the world be more beautiful than before?’ Just as contemporary architects rediscovered Wren’s architecture so did owners of country houses find their late seventeenth century interiors fashionable again. For instance in 1811 the 6th Duke of Devonshire had regarded the State Apartments at Chatsworth ‘ponderous’ and ‘dismal’ reminding him uncomfortably of Hampton Court. He and Wyatville originally planned a complete modernisation of them. But all had changed by the 1920s when Evelyn, the wife of the ninth Duke, set out with the help of her architect H. Romaine-Walker to disguise the impact of Wyatville’s alterations. The Oak stairs were given a seventeenth century cornice and doorcases and a corner fireplace was inserted in the china closet modelled in an example from Hampton Court.

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Jacques Lavaret e Jonathan Savouron sono due compagni di viaggio che tra previsioni, ritardi nelle partenze e imprevisti, in agosto dalla Francia arrivano prima a Liverpool e poi in Scozia. Verne era un vero esperto di ricerche sulla cultura dei luoghi, sulla geografia e anche, in parte, sulla storia, vivendoli, come in questo caso, in prima persona. Si percepisce in ogni riga di questo libro, in cui i protagonisti si ritrovano a fare i conti con una lingua straniera, con battelli a vapore, usanze che non sono le loro, cibi differenti. A sentirle oggi, queste cose, potrebbero sembrare assurde, ma se ci pensate questo libro è stato scritto nel 1859, quando Verne viaggia insieme ad un amico proprio verso la Scozia. Perhaps you might take a flat at Marine Court in Hastings, built in 1937, which was described as a liner on land, or go to the movies in the cinema on the front at Margate, now the entrance to Dreamland but, when built in 1935 was the first entertainment building to have a tower with a thin fin attached, the model for thousands of others. On your holiday you would certainly want to bathe in one of the vast Lidos constructed on the beaches of most resorts. Here is Saltdean Lido built in 1938 the most sophisticated of all the seaside Lidos consciously influenced by aircraft and airport design. Si sa, quando si parla di narrativa di viaggio, io mi sciolgo e cerco sempre qualcosa di sfizioso, che possa in qualche modo attirare la mia attenzione. I was refused entry into the local church and couldn’t even find anywhere to get my hair cut. Eventually, I did find somewhere to live when I rented a room from a Jamaican family. Some of these “repats” have never lived in Britain as adults; many, according to an employee at an agency sourcing schools for returners, have settled in East Anglia – even though they have no connection with the area. Perhaps it’s a subconscious need to be as far east as possible.

Lynxes, known as Britain’s little lions, survived in Yorkshire until the sixth century AD. Their bones have been found in caves all over the country yet the Shropshire village of Lostford (“ford of the lynx” in Old English) is believed to be the only lynx-associated name in the country. Europe’s two largest predators, bears and wolves, appear frequently in folklore and fairytales. Yet the third largest predator, the lynx, is missing. Also,” says Helen, “you can buy clothes that fit you, instead of being thrown out of shops and told you’re too big and fat.” From the remains of ancient forts to the jewellery, letters and household items still being dug up by archaeologists today. We can find out brilliant details of what they ate, what their homes looked like and even what they did for fun. Some of the native British tribes have agreed to support and work with the Romans, but others are not so happy.Narrator: Beretta and her father follow Boudicca and her army. They head for Colchester, an important Roman town, and burn it to the ground. Hovering somewhere between a novel and a travelogue, this semi-autobiographical account of Verne's first trip to Britain (accompanied by his friend, the composer Aristide Hignard) is an early, formative work which did not see publication until 1989. (This English translation appeared in 1992.) At the time of its writing, it was rejected by Verne's publisher in favor of "Five Weeks in a Balloon," and while the latter novel is of dubious quality and value, it was a shrewd choice on the part of the publisher, since it did much to establish Verne's long-germinating career as a full-time writer.