Including the counties of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, East Sussex, Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Kent, Oxfordshire, Surrey and West Sussex. The South East is the most heavily populated region in England. It has more businesses, including international HQs, than anywhere else in the UK and is the most prosperous and cosmopolitan region outside London. It owes […]
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Including the counties of Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk. A radio disc jockey once did a dedication for someone living in Bury Street, Edmunds. Without wishing to offend the delightful town of Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk, perhaps this illustrates the fact that England’s eastern extremity is a little cut-off; you don’t go
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Including the counties of Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire and Rutland. What can you say about the East Midlands, an area that spawned Tennyson, DH Lawrence, Margaret Thatcher and the legend of Robin Hood? Sherwood Forest is still there, though it’s a little smaller now; and did you know they’re building a brand-new forest, the
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Including the counties of Herefordshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, West Midlands and Worcestershire. Just to confuse the unwary, the English West Midlands is a region that also includes a county called the West Midlands. The West Midlands (county) is largely urban and includes Britain’s second city, Birmingham – so it’s in the West Midlands twice. Don’t
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There are 22 ‘counties’ or ‘principal areas’ in Wales. Most modern guides differentiate between ‘North’, ‘Mid’ and ‘South’ Wales – though some don’t offer any regional breakdown at all. For the time being, that’s the approach taken by A Bit About Britain. Though politically joined with England since 1535 (see here for a bit about
Including the counties of North Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, East Riding, North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire. Yorkshire is often referred to as ‘God’s own county’. It is (by British standards) huge and the whole region straddles the north of England, from the east coast to only about ½ an hour’s drive from the
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Including the counties of Co Durham, Northumberland, Tyne & Wear and the Tees Valley. To visit North East England is to enter the old kingdom of Northumbria, formed when Bernicia – which stretched way into what is now Scotland – unified with Deira to the south, between the Tees and the Humber. North East England
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Including the counties of Cheshire, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Merseyside. North West England extends from the attractive market towns of Cheshire, through the vast urban areas around Liverpool, Manchester, Preston, Blackburn and Burnley, to the wilds of Cumbria in the north – the ancient kingdom of Rheged, where place names reflect its turbulent, multi-racial,
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Scotland is a nation within a state, one of the four countries that make up the United Kingdom. It retains its own unique identity, has its own parliament and its own laws. So it’s not surprising that it looks and feels different to its more populous neighbour, England, to the south. Familiar enough to be
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The recent background to our consumer society The Britons that dusted themselves down and emerged on the winning side in 1945 were delirious with joy and relief that it was all over. There was a terrible human price to pay, of course. And if the Britain of those days seems a little drab to more
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Britain’s role in the worst conflict the world has known, so far The Second World War was the most violent and globally shattering event in history. When it finally ended, at least 60 million people lay dead; some estimates are as high as 79 million. It is part of the tragedy that we’ll never know
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The failure of appeasement This is a question often asked, but it’s academic – rather like saying, “If I’d left the house earlier, I wouldn’t have got caught in the rain.” Adolf Hitler’s Nazi party came to power in Germany in 1933 on a programme of public works, employment and restoring both national and personal
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Inter-war interlude The writer and journalist Andrew Marr points out that, unlike other eras in the story of Britain, we have no name for the period between the first and second world wars. It’s as though it’s a kind of interlude sandwiched between two earth-shattering events during which people were recovering from one whilst waiting
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The consequences of the First World War are still with us The First World War transformed the world forever. The conflict itself resonated through the remainder of the 20th century and set events in motion that have informed the world we live in today. Some of the consequences are obvious – the map of the
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