Two states now predominated -- suburban and abandoned -- increasingly at the expense of the alternative, a living countryside." However I have to say that I don't feel that Stewart's change of focus in 'The Marches' works as well. Unfortunately, it also lessened, to a degree, my personal respect for the author. One predominant theme, intended or not, is Stewart's love of Britain's "lived in" rural landscape. The small village, the stone fence enclosures, the sheep and cattle, the neighboring farms and farm houses, where everyone knows everyone. A certain coziness. After the Norman conquest, the Middleland area was cleared of habitation and reserved as royal forest for the king's hunting. Stewart looks on forest as a form of desert.

The Marches: A Borderland Journey Between England and Scotland

Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2022-01-01 15:15:02 Boxid IA40085911 Camera Sony Alpha-A6300 (Control) Collection_set printdisabled External-identifier However, the third part - the attitude - was a huge disappointment to me. In Stewart's previous writing, he seemed very sympathetic yet fair-mindedly critical regarding all the people he came across. Here, his attitude reflects that of the book project itself: he had a preconceived notion of what he wanted to find and do, and is resistant and frustrated when the reality doesn't match those preconceived notions. Stewart has a ridiculously romanticized notion of rural British life, and is practically angry when he discovers that rural English folks and Scots are, well, modern people, concerned with their daily lives without secretly harboring old tales and traditions. Those who do love the old tales and traditions repeatedly come under fire from him for being inauthentic and inaccurate (this may be true, but one would think we could appreciate the passion and love these people have, regardless.) Meer dan een verhaal over 2 lange wandeltochten, 1 langs Hadrian's Wall, 1 van aan het huis van de auteur in Cumbria tot het huis van zijn vader in Schotland, is dit boek een ode. Een ode aan de hoogbejaarde vader van de auteur (flink in de 90), een ode aan Schotland en meer nog aan The Marches, een gebied tussen Engeland en Schotland dat eerder in de geschiedenis als een aparte regio werd gezien. De auteur gaat ook op zoek naar de geschiedenis van dit gebied, de herkomst van de plaatsnamen, wat de Romeinen, de Vikingen, de Northumbrians, de Kelten, ... er deden en hoe dit alles verder leeft in de overlevering en de tradities. Hij ontdekt echter dat geschiedenis evolueert, dat niets blijft zoals het is en dat de mooiste tradities zijn die je zelf maakt. Stewart's father, Brian, is present throughout the book. In his early 90s as the book takes place, Brian Stewart serves as a bridge between the British Empire and Britain of today. A WWII veteran, a diplomat, and a high-ranking director of MI6 in the mid-70s. He was "Q". Moreover, Stewart combines his trekking observations with a tribute to his father -- a man who was an amazing example of a certain vigorous type of polymath and adventurer spawned by the British Empire -- and a deeply moving, bittersweet testimonial to the unusually close relationship between father and son. The book begins with Stewart's memories of his father as a child, and ends with his father's death at 93 in 2015.Modern agriculture, tourism, environmentalism, and reforestation are causing a rapid re-desertification, in Stewart's eyes. Small farms held by families for centuries are being combined into large mechanized agricultural businesses. The government is reforesting other areas, and environmentalists are undoing the farmers' work of centuries, returning the land to "non-invasive" species. Among the many undesirable effects, as Stewart sees it, is a significant depopulation: fewer people now live in the "Middleland" than at any time since the middle ages, and deserted farm houses abound. I got a bit lost in his descriptions of the route, not knowing some the places along the way. But there are maps of his route that helped me follow where he went. He describes the landscape, the geology, sheep farming and land use, the people he met, their history and language and much, much more. Travelling across mountain ridges and through housing estates they uncover a forgotten country crushed between England and Scotland: the Middleland. They discover unsettling modern lives, lodged in an ancient place, as their odyssey develops into a history of the British nationhood, a chronicle of contemporary Britain and an exuberant encounter between a father and a son.

The Marches : A Borderland Journey Between England and Scotland The Marches : A Borderland Journey Between England and Scotland

This beautifully written book is a haunting reflection of identity and our relationships with the people and places we love’ Daily MailThe first problem, perhaps, is that this is very clearly the product of: "I'm setting out to write another book," rather than, "These experiences and thoughts I've had demand the writing of a book." It is admitted, several times in the text, that the author is having trouble getting that book together, and it shows. As a writer, Stewart has a fine sense of the nature of the physical spaces he traverses, as well as the human stories (past and present) that play out in these landscapes." --SIGNATURE Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.

The Marches : a borderland journey between England and Scotland

Fascinating Stewart provides wonderful insights as he visits Roman fortifications, medieval castles, and Hadrian s Wall. This is an informative, thoughtful, and timely mix of history and travelogue. BOOKLIST Stewart's evaluation of his father feels entirely justified, but his self-deprecation not so much. I suspect his father -- who continued to call his son "darling" right up to the end -- was immensely proud of his son's accomplishments, and felt he was leaving his world in good hands. Stewart and his father are drawn into unsettling reflections on landscape, their parallel careers in the bygone British Empire and Iraq, and the past, present, and uncertain future of the United Kingdom. This is a profound reflection on family, landscape, and history by a powerful and original writer.FROM MY BLOG). Hadrian's Wall, constructed by the Romans from A.D. 122 to about 128, crosses northern England from Newcastle, through Carlisle, to Bowness on the Solway Firth. In 2010, I followed the wall its entire length on foot. Stewart] anchors his lively mix of history, travelogue, and reportage on local communities in a vibrant portrait of his father, who was both a tartan-wearing Scotsman and a thoroughly British soldier and diplomat."-- Publishers Weekly Lccn bl2016030217 Ocr tesseract 5.0.0-alpha-20201231-10-g1236 Ocr_detected_lang en Ocr_detected_lang_conf 1.0000 Ocr_detected_script Latin Ocr_detected_script_conf 0.9183 Ocr_module_version 0.0.12 Ocr_parameters -l eng Old_pallet IA-NS-1300176 Openlibrary_edition Stewart loves seeking out the etymology of place names, and notes frequently which areas of the Middleland have names deriving from Northumbrian (Germanic) roots, which from Norse roots, and which from Cumbric-Welsh roots. He points out that what he now calls the Middleland was, before and for some time after the Conquest, shared by a number of kings representing different language and cultural regions. Some of these distinctions still exist in local language and customs. It was an attitude to his life, then, and a resilience. I was only half-conscious of the many ways in which he had modestly concealed how he was better than me -- in singing, in his languages, in his sense of engineering or art, and in his promptitude and energy in work. In the end, I felt, his legacy was not some grand philosophical or political vision, but playfulness, and a delight in action."