Worcestershire

The past is chaotic and complex. History aims to create coherent narratives to make meaning. What to do with those bits of the past that don’t readily fit into a history? How about a book like an ‘A-Z’? Evesham, like everywhere, has plenty of such snippets. There were a numerous local mysteries to consider. One is the location of “Long...

When writing Secret Evesham I had two particular ideas in mind. First, I wanted to debunk a handful of long-standing local stories because, well, they have no basis in history (though they’re undeniably a bit of fun). Second, and much more importantly, there is a lot of “hidden history” which I wanted to explore and share. Pavement slab in Vine...

Historic England holds an extraordinary archive of images, both historical and new, of England’s amazing architectural heritage. This particular book about Worcestershire represents a small and select slice from that remarkable collection. The trick for this book was working out a way to gather together a representative mix of photographs (say 50/50 in colour and black-and-white) from right across the...

Evesham’s Military Heritage? An interesting title and a fascinating subject; but how to write such a book? The challenge wasn’t the lack of material. Indeed, the opposite is true: there’s far too much. After all, entire books have been dedicated just to Simon de Montfort (Earl of Leicester) and the Battle of Evesham (4th August 1265); its context, characters, impact...

Don Kenyon was a ’leader of champions and a champion of leaders’ for good reason; he was his own man and did things his own way. Known as ‘Braddy’ at school - like Don Bradman - he would bat for long periods without getting out. He still holds the record as the youngest player to score a century in the...