HISTORICAL FACTS: 2 | History Defined

Griff Rhys Jones rails against plans to ‘smother’ Liverpool Street station

Comedian leads coalition against ‘exploitative’ proposal for 16-storey buildings over listed station

The Guardian - UK · Feb 3, 2023

We Danced on Our Desks by Philip Norman review – an unbeatable portrait of a writer finding his voice

The Beatles biographer evokes the energy and glamour of the 1960s in this droll and vivid account of his years on the Sunday Times Magazine

The Guardian - UK · Nov 27, 2022

Betjeman’s Liverpool Street campaign revived in face of new development

Conservationists hope spirit of late poet laureate’s 1970s protest will protect the Victorian station from ‘serious harm’

The Guardian - UK · Nov 23, 2022

Five men and one woman who took on impossible job – of poet laureate

Several of the poets appointed by, or inherited by the Queen, had to deal with public mockery. No wonder Philip Larkin turned down the role

The Guardian - UK · Sep 10, 2022

Philip Larkin at 100: Why the morbid curmudgeon still belongs in schools

A century after the poet’s birth, Larkin’s friend and biographer Andrew Motion talks to Kevin E G Perry about his controversial prejudices, his keen sense of mortality and why he continues to deserve a place on the national curriculum

The Independent UK · Aug 7, 2022

Edge of England by Derek Turner review – a love letter to Lincolnshire

The poet and novelist pays homage to the England’s lost country and a vanishing way of life

The Guardian - UK · Jul 23, 2022

Special pubs given protection status to ensure they won't be turned into flats

Whitelock's Ale House - described by Sir John Betjeman as ‘the very heart of Leeds’ - is one of 11 famous watering holes getting Grade II* heritage status on the advice of Historic England

Daily Mirror · Jun 15, 2022

18th-century Leeds pub upgraded to Grade II*-listed status

Whitelock’s Ale House, along with 1856-built Prince Alfred in Maida Vale, awarded extra protection

The Guardian - UK · Jun 15, 2022

‘An unmissable spring spectacle’: readers’ favourite places to spot birds

Migrant birds like swallows and wheatears are arriving in the UK at the end of epic journeys. Our tipsters share their favourite places to see them

The Guardian - UK · May 5, 2022

Country diary: An unassuming chapel, full of death and life

Ayshford, Devon: It sits alone, tucked between canal and motorway, with centuries-old carvings that remind us of our mortality

The Guardian - UK · Mar 31, 2022