Ecological writer Satish Kumar once wrote that ‘unless you know Nature, you cannot love her’. Likewise, if we wish to protect England’s green and pleasant land, it’s important to get to know why. People who drop fast food litter, pollute our seas with oil and hunt our precious wildlife, obviously were never taught all about why our land is so beautiful and precious.
Warwickshire is a totally landlocked county. A writer to hail from these parts was JRR Tolkien who wrote The Lord of the Rings. Although he was born in South Africa, his family returned to England when he was a child (his poverty-stricken widowed mother was cut off by her Baptist family after converting to Catholicism, a religion that stayed with him his whole life). Rumour has it that his faith influenced his fellow writer friend CS Lewis (but Tolkien was dismayed that he joined the Church of England instead). He grew up in Sarehole, a Worcestershire village (now part of Birmingham), where he would enjoy exploring the Malvern Hills.
home to the home of William Shakespeare
Warwickshire is home to the town of Stratford-upon-Avon, which after London is the most visited tourist attraction in England. This is wholly due to being the home of William Shakespeare, who was also a wealthy property developer, although quite left-wing (he likely would have been an MP campaigning for the poor, if he had been alive today). He no longer has any living descendents, so people flock here to absorb the atmosphere of his many plays.
Nuneaton (the heart of ‘the northern Midlands’)
Nuneaton is a small town. Although the counties of Derbyshire and Leicestershire are furthest from the sea, Ordnance Survey says this is the exact ‘centre point’ of England. Writer George Eliot grew up nearby, and went on to write Middlemarch, regarded as one of the finest English novels ever written. Born Mary Ann Evans, she was cut off from her family for having a ‘scandalous’ affair with George Henry Lewes (who was already in an open marriage). They remained together for 25 years until his death, then 2 years later she married a man 20 years younger than her. During their honeymoon, he leapt from the hotel suite balcony, ‘sailing over gondolas’ before being rescued from the Grand Canal. George Eliot then became ill and died 6 months later.
A much-loved former resident (who was born there and never left) was TV presenter Larry Grayson. Born to a young single mother at a time when it was ‘a cardinal sin’, Ethel White (not wanting her son to be adopted) wrapped her baby in a blanket and took him on the train to Nuneaten Station to hand him over to his new foster mother and her teenage daughters, so she could continue to visit as his ‘adoring aunty’. They became close friends along with his adoptive parents who he described as ‘the most beautiful, most wonderful people on God’s earth’. When his foster mother died, his foster sister brought him up and they lived together until his death.
