Lead Us Not Into Trent Station' is Richard Guise's popular memoir of childhood in a Derbyshire town of the 1950s and '60s. Mr Handlebar in the Market Place, sneezing thurifer's at St Laurence's church, 'Mad Ron' at the local grammar school... real-life characters pack these pages. We're soon taken beyond the Midlands to the hazards of university life, epic battles with French red tape, complete confusion in Spain, sartorial problems in China -- and finally back again to a Long Eaton that poses its own problems in the form of Bazzaranshaz.
Sixteen years after moving to Catalonia, Richard finally finds time to slow down and explore the back roads by bicycle. Dipping into the unique history of this fiercely independent nation-within-a-nation, and chancing upon nudist beaches, ancient Iberian sites and revolutionary road-sweepers, this slow cyclist revels in authentic Catalonia.
For many Britons France has provided their first taste of that alien world called 'abroad' - and sometimes their last. Richard Guise has tracked down ten travellers' tales from three centuries, before venturing forth himself to follow some of their wanderings across the country. He finds out what's left from the sights they saw and how dramatically the country and its people changed over these turbulent times - taking in the years of the Grand Tour, the Revolution and the Napoleonic era; the coming of the railways, holidays and guide books; two world wars, recovery and prosperity; and the twenty-first-century threat of terrorism. His virtual companions include two Grand Tourers (Philip Thicknesse and Tobias Smollett - nicknamed Smelfungus), the man rumoured to have inspired Karl Baedeker, a future chairman of London County Council and Richard's own father, a D-Day survivor. They're not all complimentary about France and the French...
Current policies in planning emphasise the importance of rejuvenating neighbourhoods. This new guide seeks to bridge the gap between rhetoric and reality, promoting an interprofessional and collaborative approach to making localities work.
The reason the wind is so cold is that there's nothing between here and the Urals'. A casual remark by his father, to which no one else seems to have paid the slightest attention, sets Richard Guise off on an unlikely adventure. Fifty years after standing on that chilly Leicestershire hilltop, he aims to prove his father wrong. A quest for truth, beer and jokes through England, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Belarus and Russia.
It is increasingly important to define what constitutes the unique character of our neighbourhoods, in order to identify what we value and should protect, to pinpoint areas for improvement and places which could be enhanced through sensitive change. But how do we define ‘character’ or a ‘sense of place’? How do we appraise the setting and site of a development area, in order that the essential character is retained and reflected in the design of new development? How can these qualities be communicated to decision makers and involve communities? Characterising Neighbourhoods provides an accessible and richly illustrated guide to the practical methods of appraising neighbourhoods which are precise, well informed and engaging. It demonstrates how characterisation is used as an evidence base for the planning and management of neighbourhoods and urban areas. The core focus is on a proven characterisation method developed and used by the authors and used by community groups, schools, planning and urban design students and professionals. It creates a common language used by these groups in evaluating places. This guide provides a wealth of supporting information, including; briefing on the recognition of local architectural styles, periods and materials, detecting the influence of historic street layouts and property boundaries, townscape concepts such as scale and enclosure, and topographical characteristics. Characterising Neighbourhoods is a valuable resource for practicing planners, urban designers and environmental professionals as well as students in these subjects.
All day, every day we're surrounded by things that annoy us. So it's surprising we've had to wait until now for a reasonable list. Speaking up for irritated people all over Britain, the Old Geezer's Dictionary of Irritants points a decisive finger at offenders, with both gusto and humour.
The author of popular cycling travelogues From the Mull to the Cape and Two Wheels Over Catalonia takes to the pedals again - this time with electrical assistance. In a sixteen-day tour around the far reaches of England's biggest county, Richard Guise tracks down the odd, the outlandish and the downright obscure in Yorkshire's unique story. Battling against wind, rain, rising tides and impossible gradients - as well as the unpredictable whims of Yorkshire's sign-writers - he also offers invaluable advice for the would-be e-biker.
Four English blokes of a certain age strike out from their Leicestershire local and head for the hills of the Dingle Peninsula. This laugh-out-loud tale of their short amble on the wild west coast of Ireland is packed with character and characters, beer and banter, daftness and a dolphin.
Harry Quiningborough lived life to the full. From a rural shoemaker's cottage in Victorian Lincolnshire to the colonial scene on the shores of the Indian Ocean, his talents as an actor, a singer and, above all, a show-stopping comedian carried him across the world. While he was destined never to return to his homeland, his belongings did and it's among these that, a century later, a great-nephew discovered the treasure trove of Harry's photographs. In a beautiful album entitled 'Sunny Memories', he'd carefully recorded the names, dates and, most of all, his own impressions of the exotic places he'd visited: Rangoon, Penang, Singapore, Canton, Hong Kong... Richard Guise has re-traced his great-uncle's journey from the village of Oasby (near Grantham) via Derby, Cardiff and far-away Colombo to the very grave in Calcutta where he was buried by his theatrical pals in 1915. This is the story both of Harry's extraordinary life and of the quest to bring it to light. With fifty illustrations, many from the 'Sunny Memories' album, this remarkable tale brings the days of music hall and of empire back into startling focus.
Richard Guise follows a unique 450-mile route across England on foot and on his trusty bike Tetley. His guide is the wiggly line that divides rivers flowing west from those flowing east, a choice that takes him over rolling downlands, along windy ridges, through remote villages, across ancient battlefields, past abandoned airfields and even -- surprisingly -- by boat through a network of canal tunnels that echo to the sound of cannon fire. Accompanying or accommodating him on parts of this serendipitous journey are an array of locals with their own stories to tell: the quail-raising smallholder, the bumptious yachtsman, cake fans, ferret fanciers, re-writers of history and more. The route itself turns out to have historical significance and Guise roots out odd tales of passion and heroism, vision and fear, drunkenness, conceit, deceit and murder.
Richard Guise yearned to take on a physical challenge, so he set off for an adventure on a 586-mile bike ride through the Highlands of Scotland. Guise discovers the little-known history of this unique part of Britain, picking up on the oddities and strange beauty of the place and telling it all with gentle humour.
The Derbyshire villages of Draycott and Church Wilne have dozed quietly beside the left bank of the Derwent for more than a thousand years, barely registering a mention even in the history of the area. But have things really been as quiet as that? What about the case of the dodgy 18th-century vicar? The flying corpse? The combustible cricketer? And more disastrous, but unexplained, fires than you could shake a stick at. No, things are definitely not as quiet as they seem down by the Derwent. And anyway, why are the local inhabitants known as 'Neddies'?
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