As a change from working on 'Counties, I've spent some time sharpening  'The leg', a crime novel I finished last year. So far I've got rid of ca 20,000 flabby words and feel it's an improvement!               

 

I have now completed or nearly completed, entries for Devon, Cornwall, Cheshire, Lancashire and Denbighshire.

 

               Just come back from a trip down to Devon and Cornwall which combined an enjoyable reunion with some old friends with some research for the'West Country' section of 'Counties'. A week or so ago, I stayed with my son in Hampshire which has meant that I've made progress in that part of the country.

 

 April 2011

        Unfortunately I've been in hospital for some 10 days, but am now out and ready to play for Wales- if they want some experience.(If only I was forty years younger and had more talent than I've been given). As for some months before this stay, I was feeling a bit below par, I haven't made as much progress with 'Counties' as I would have liked. But that will change!         

 

 

 

For reasons of cost, time and the effort needed, I've decided that 'Where have all the Counties gone?', will be limited to those in England and Wales. After its publication, I'll book a ferry to Ireland and then sort out the logistics of my visits to Scotland.

 

              Thanks to the goodwill of all those who helped me, I'm now able to start writing up the Cheshire section of 'Where have all the Counties gone?'

 

             This is just a quick note to thank those talented men and women who participated in my Creative Writing Trail last Saturday. I enjoyed the experience, and hope they did too.

Diolch yn fawr iawn. 

                    On October 2, as part of Gwyl fama - an arts and music festival held in the towns and villages that surround Moel Famau, I'm leading a Creative Writing day, which will be based on a bus trundling along the roads of this lovely part of the world and stopping from time to time so that those aboard can do a little writing!

 

                 Running a workshop formembers of the Chirk Writers' Circle. I'm looking forward to an enjoyable return visit.

 

 

After finishing editing my first novel, 'The leg', I'll be really  cracking on with my next travel book,'Where have all the counties gone?' (Regular site browsers will have noted yet another different title for the same book...but this time I'm going to stick with the one listed above...honestly!

 

Over the years, planners, politicians, satirists and circumstances have played fast and loose with historic counties which, for some people at least, help shape the way 'outsiders' see them and the way they see themselves. 

 It's a subject with so many questions...

Does it matter where you're from? Does the place of birth help shape the way you see yourself and the way others see you? Why do some historic counties seem to have higher profiles than others? Why are there so many stereotypes in a topic like this? Do all Yorkshiremen enjoy calling a spade a spade?  Whatever happened to Westmorland,Selkirkshire or Middlesex?  Is there a 'Wessex' identity? Should someone born a Lancastrian care if, overnight, they find themselves living in Merseyside at the stroke of an administrative pen? 

     Do administrative changes really affect the way people think about themselves? What's in a name? Do views change as you move through the generations? What have been the effects of increasing social and geographical mobilty? Does any of this really matter?

 

 My plans...

      I'm going  to travel around the country and talk to people who might offer me local perspective and insight, as well as those who might, in some cases at least, be described as being a touch eccentric!

 

 Gareth Wheatley