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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. ‘I am Galahad,’ intones the boy in a nasal voice, ‘I changed my name by deed poll.’ Kerridge is delighted. ‘Like that bloke in Farnborough who calls himself Arthur Uther Pendragon.’ ‘He is my friend,’ nods the bearded one, ‘my master and my king.’ Kerridge may be innocent but he’s no fool. He understands that the protesters regard all urban building — from leaky tower-blocks to Georgian crescents — as equally Satanic. Their vision is of ‘empty cities, swathed in ivy, overgrown, deserted roads, and there, afar in the dank woodlands, the flickering camp fires of the Tribes of Albion’. An astute summary of their aims, not untinged by approval.
At heart Kerridge is a moralist. He dislikes local councillors, trade unions, L. S. Lowry and people who say ‘there’s no such word as can’t’.
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