Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Tales of the unexpected

issue 27 May 2006

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As the large publishers get fatter, richer and duller, the little ones get nippier, sharper and more vigorous. Roy Kerridge is the author of many books, but none of the grand publishing houses wanted this eccentric and highly personal guide to Britain, presumably because it lacks the amenable and forgettable polish of most travel books. Kerridge is charming,  opinionated and a little bit mad. Excellent company, therefore. A lifelong ‘non- driver’, he strolls the lanes and by-ways of Britain with a stick, ‘cutting the heads off stinging nettles with clever whisks’, and singing ‘Zippety Doodah’, ‘useful for frightening wild creatures out into the open’.

His innocence is like a magic charm that elicits the unexpected from strangers. He joins a group of protesters encamped in self-dug caves around a proposed by-pass. Seated beside the bubbling lentil pot, he introduces himself to his companion, a lad in a scruffy beard.

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