The concept of the 'school run' dates from the 1990s

Adam Webster, full-time father and part-time Associate Professor in Law and Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government, argues that the government must rethink how Britain conceives work, care and family life. 

As he says in an 'expert comment' issued by the University of Oxford's media people, we have built a world where parents are expected to be simultaneously working and present for family. 

It's all good stuff, but I was struck by this sentence:

In the 1950s, 80 per cent of mothers in the UK stayed at home and the school run was part of their domestic routine.

My instinct was that the concept of the school run is more recent than that, and Google Ngram above suggests I'm right. It's use suddenly took off in the late 1990s.

And we didn't have much of a school run avant la lettre. In the 1950s, people tended to live nearer their children's school then fewer of them owned cars. Whether because of this lower level of traffic or because there was less fear of 'strangers', they were more relaxed about letting young children out on their own. So a school child would soon walk to school with friends or older brothers and sisters rather than their mother.

I can certainly recall that in the Sixties you would have died from embarrassment if you had been met from school once you had reached the age of nine.

You can't turn the clock back, but every change has positive and negative consequences.

Cromford Moor Mine and the legend of the Black Rocks

Assailed by hay fever, flying insects and stinging nettles, Gareth Icke is our guide for a walk in the hills above the Derwent Valley in Derbyshire/

With that setting, disused lead mines, white spoil heaps and unlikely-sounding local folklore, this video ticks a lot of Liberal England boxes.

For more like it, subscribe to The Walk on YouTube.

An esoteric walk around Aleister Crowley's London

Lord Bonkers had no time for him, but Aleister Crowley has been crossing my path of late. So here's an esoteric walk across his London with John Rogers and Marco Visconti:

This walking tour weaves a web of mystery and magick through a portion of central London forever haunted by the man known as The Great Beast. Starting at Cleopatra's Needle on the Embankment we head up to Charing Cross, St Martin's Lane to Watkins Bookshop in Cecil Court which has been on the site for over 120 years. We then follow the magic thread to Henrietta Street in Covent Garden and from here drift across the Piazza to Freemasons' Hall - one of the most mysterious and beguiling locations in London. 

Our 'Crowley Crawl' takes us up Kingsway to Museum Street in Bloomsbury and the brilliant Atlantis Bookshop which "was established in 1922 by magicians, for magicians. It is the birth-place of modern witchcraft, with Gerald Gardner holding regular coven meetings in the basement of the Shop." It was also a favourite bookshop of Aleister Crowley. The final leg of our walk of mystery and magic takes us down Oxford Street, Kingley Street to Regent Street, ending at 93 Jermyn Street where Crowley lived for a period of time.

And not the reference to Frieda Harris.

John Rogers has a Patreon account to support his videos and blogs at The Lost Byway.

Following the course of the River Leen through Nottingham

Our History Underfoot – like and subscribe, my children, like and subscribe – follows the course of the River Leen through Nottingham. Just as in John Rogers' London river walks, we are taken to parts of the city we wouldn't normally see.

Except that I have been to some of these places. To prove it, here are my photographs of the railway bridge – I was surprised at how low it was, but didn't guess the reason – and the start of the Tinker's Leen beside the Nottingham Canal.

Lib Dem Rutland plans cycle-path from Oakham to Rutland Water

Rutland County Council is consulting residents on plans for a new cycling route connecting Oakham town centre with Rutland Water..

The council, which is run by a minority Liberal Democrat administration, says the scheme would improve accessibility for residents and visitors, support tourism and local businesses, and reduce reliance on cars.

Oliver Hemsley, the council's portfolio holder for environment and transport, told BBC News:

Rutland Water is one of the county's most valued destinations for both residents and visitors, and these proposals are about making it easier and safer for people to travel there by bike or on foot.

There's more information on the council's website. 

Lord Bonkers has asked me to point out that the chances of being devoured by the Rutland Water Monster while visiting have been greatly exaggerated by an irresponsible media.

John Rogers wanders the City of London’s passages and alleyways

I sometimes wonder if one of the reasons the "London isn't safe" propaganda has gained such a hold is that the city has changed so much in recent decades. I hardly recognise the skyline from the days when I worked there in the 1980s.

But maybe London has always been like that. Go back another 40 years from when I knew it well and you would find a very different cityscape of bombsites and ruins.

Still, a lot of "the old London" remains. In fact, I was surprised how much of it John Rogers found on this walk.

Here's his YouTube blurb.

Join me on a fascinating London walk through the City of London's narrow alleyways, passages and lanes, where many secrets of its past are revealed. 

We explore the rich London history, discovering historical plaques that mark sites like the Worshipful Company of Masons and Jonathan's Coffee House, a pivotal location for early stock market activity. 

This journey into hidden London offers unique facts about the city's enduring legacy from Roman London through Tudor London to the modern day.

John Rogers has a Patreon account to support his videos and blogs at The Lost Byway.

Jago Hazzard on the St Ives Bay Line

He sounds like a minor character from Poldark, so it's appropriate that we find Jago Hazzard away from his London stamping ground and in Cornwall. He's our guide to what it seems we must now call the storied history of the St Ives Bay Line - surprisingly storied, in fact.

I stayed in St Ives when I was walking the coastal path many years ago. This was before the Tate opened in the town, but even then it was it was absolutely heaving.Yet the next morning I walked a mile out of town towards Zennor and had the clifftops to myself.

But then no one ever built a St Ives, Zennor and Lands End light railway.

Shropshire ley line quest: Bronze Age stones to Medieval fortress

Don't believe in ley lines? I'd like to, but I don't either. So let's just enjoy this as Shropshire hill porn.

This is freely adapted from the blurb on YouTube:

On the final part of the quest, we trek six rugged miles from the ancient Mitchell’s Fold stone circle across windswept hills to the mysterious ruins of Simon’s Castle, perched just east of Churchstoke.

Along the way, we follow the straight-line path of a 14-mile ley line that links Caus Castle near Westbury and Simon’s Castle. Expect stunning Shropshire scenery, hidden historical gems, medieval fortress vibes, and plenty of on-the-ground exploration as we close out this multi-part adventure.

Like and subscribe, my pretties. Like and subscribe.

The Joy of Six 1488

"It’s what happens when the NHS has run out of room. It means intimate conversations about cancer, stroke, or dementia in earshot of strangers. It means delays to assessment and treatment, including pain relief, become more likely – dignity stripped away through lack of capacity." Danny Chambers says corridor care will continue for another three years – and that’s not good enough.

Nick Bowes reckons political fragmentation could lead to the most interesting London election results since the 32 boroughs were formed.

"When e-cigarettes first appeared around 2010, they were hailed as a breakthrough: nicotine delivery without the toxic tar and combustion byproducts of traditional cigarettes. Public health bodies cautiously endorsed them as a tool for adult smokers to quit, often citing early claims that vaping was 95 per cent less harmful than smoking. More than a decade later, with millions now vaping regularly, the picture is less clear." Vikram Niranjan reports on warning signs that vaping may not be as benign as we thought.

Black female footballers are praised for their strength, white female footballers are praised for their intelligence. Paul Ian Campbell and Allison Thompson discuss the findings of their research.

Jude Rogers chooses her 10 best folk albums of 2025.

Ray Newman follows in the footsteps of Henry VII, who made a pilgrimage to the holy well of St Anne  near Bristol in 1486: "If you want to stick to something like Henry’s route, you have to push past rows of signs and columns cones, squeeze between temporary fences, evade robotic security sentinels that shout at you if you linger too long, and leap muddy puddles in a road surface turned into no-man’s-land by the constant passing of concrete mixers."

John Rogers explores Acton Town, Turnham Green and Chiswick House Park

Time for another London walk with John Rogers:

A walk from Acton Town Tube Station down Bollo Lane looking at the changes taking place there, then across Turnham Green where I talk about the Civil War battle that took place there in 1642. The video ends at the beautiful Chiswick House Park.

This walking tour explores West London history, urban change, and hidden landscapes, moving through Acton, Bollo Lane, Turnham Green, and Chiswick. Along the way it touches on London regeneration, psychogeography, Civil War history, grand houses, and the last industrial London.

Most signs of the Acton Town to South Acton branch disappeared long ago. Diamond Geezer has an article about it.

John Rogers has a Patreon account to support his videos and he blogs at The Lost Byway.

The glorious story of Shacklewell and De Beauvoir Town

Another walk with John Rogers:

This East London walk takes is into the surprising hidden corners of the London Borough of Hackney. Our urban stroll explores the historic areas of Shacklewell and De Beauvoir Town, both with rich and fascinating histories. Starting on Mare Street we follow Amhurst Road to Shacklewell Lane and the site of Shacklewell House which had been an important country house from at least the 16th century. 

We then take a look at the Somerford Grove Estate designed by Frederick Gibberd in the late 1940s and winner of a prize at the Festival of Britain of 1951. Crossing Kingsland Road we then wander the streets of one of London's most beguiling hidden neighbourhoods, De Beauvoir Town. Developed in the 1830s this Victorian area was saved from demolition in the 1960s and remains one of London's true hidden gems.

It didn't make this YouTube blurb, but towards the end we also see the home of the Hackney Mole Man, who was made famous by Iain Sinclair.

John Rogers has a Patreon account to support his videos and he blogs at The Lost Byway.

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"Events are moving so quickly that it’s worth stopping to assess where we are. The U.S. government is currently building massive detention facilities, already detaining tens of thousands of people there and elsewhere, with incompetent and deeply racist secret police sweeping undocumented all kinds of people – immigrants, those with their paperwork in order, and US citizens alike – off the street." Andrea Pitzer says the correct response to Dachau was not better training for the guards.

Tanya Park argues that banning social media for children misses the point: "If we’re serious about protecting children online, we need to regulate the companies, not ban the children. That means enforcing existing law, strengthening platform obligations, eliminating addictive design, and empowering young people with the knowledge and tools to navigate digital spaces safely."

James Meek visited Greenland last year as Trump was starting to make noises about annexing it.

"The Peggy who emerges from these formative years is part Girl Guide, part witch: a Gothic dreamer with a work ethic; Madame Sosostris meets the persona Atwood calls ‘Ms Fixit’. She marries a fellow Victorianist because it makes practical sense but yearns for something else. She makes her own clothes but also fancy-dress costumes and puppets." Sophie Oliver reviews Margaret Atwood's Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts."

Lolly Willowes is a work of modernism not in the sense of formal innovation but in its statement that after the first world war the old order was no longer tenable. The novel is a rejection of Victorian pieties as subversive as Lytton Strachey’s Eminent Victorians." Henry Wessells on Sylvia Townsend Warner's novel.

Johnny Campbell goes for a New Year walk in Edale and thinks of those who fought to give us access to this landscape.

An Observer podcast series on The Real Salt Path

If you were hooked by Chloe Hadjimatheou's reporting of the questionable veracity of The Salt Path, you may be interested to know that the Observer has now produced a series of podcasts telling the story of this exposé, The Walkers: The real Salt Path.

I walked The Salt Path myself – we called it the South Coastal Path in those days – from Minehead to Weymouth, over four summer holidays, in the Eighties and Nineties. 

Don't tell Jennie, but I left out the stretch through Torbay (my guidebook said it was allowed) because it was so built up.

Hunting ley lines in Shropshire: Castle Ring to Mitchell’s Fold

You know how none of us believe in ley lines? Here's the fourth part of Third Rate Content's quest following one line they have found in Shropshire.

Their YouTube blurb says:

Join Third Rate content on an epic adventure from Castle Ring to Mitchell’s Fold in the Shropshire Hills! In this episode, we hike through stunning landscapes, exploring ancient hillforts and uncovering hidden prehistoric mysteries. 

Stumble with us as we discover an unmarked stone ring (approx. 100 sq ft, semi-submerged stones) not shown on OS maps, possibly a Bronze Age ring cairn or ritual site near the Castle Ring. The journey ends at the iconic Mitchell’s Fold stone circle, steeped in history and legend.

A chance chat at the car park revealed another uncharted site—could it be another secret waiting to be found? We’ll share tips on navigating this rugged terrain and hints for spotting these elusive treasures. Buckle up and I’ll see you out there. 

Like and subscribe, my pretties. Like and subscribe.

Following the River Westbourne from Kilburn to Chelsea

It's time for another walk with John Rogers, and it's one of the kind I enjoy the most: a walk that follows one of London's lost rivers.

John describes it in his YouTube blurb as a:

walking tour of London’s lost river Westbourne from Kilburn to Chelsea via Maida Vale, Paddington, Bayswater, Knightsbridge, and Belgravia. The Westbourne is one of London’s most celebrated lost rivers and wasn’t fully buried until the mid-1800s. Consequently its course is very well documented and is famously carried over Sloane Square tube station in a pipe that can be seen from the platform.

John has a Patreon account to support his videos and he blogs at The Lost Byway. 

Pedestrian deaths are increasing because of the rise of SUVs

Embed from Getty Images

Other transport modes such as aviation and railways have become almost accident free as a result of improved safety measures and better technology. Yet, motor vehicles have moved in the opposite direction. 

The long term improvement in casualty figures as a result of, for example, seat belt legislation and reduction in drunk driving has stalled because cars are becoming more dangerous – not for their occupants but for those outside them.

So writes Christian Wolmar in his latest Substack post. 

He says road casualty deaths in the UK have remained annually at around 1600-1700, but the number of pedestrian fatalities increased from 385 to 409 between 2022 and 2024. This rise, he says, is part of a wider phenomenon in many countries and the cause reason for it is all too obvious. 

He continues:

A recent report in The Age newspaper about road deaths in the state of Victoria in Australia is unequivocal about the cause, the rise of the SUV. Pedestrian deaths in the state are at a 17 year high having increase by more than a quarter since 2015 with, the article says, ‘concerns the growing dominance of large SUVs and utes [utility vehicles] is reversing years of road safety gains’.

The Age cites Milad Haghani, a transport safety researcher at Melbourne University who said ‘there was a growing body of evidence to suggest that vehicle size was causing a nationwide increase in pedestrian deaths’, Indeed, he pointed out that Australia was in danger of following the same path as the US where pedestrian deaths hit an all time low in 2009 but then grew 77 per cent to hit a 40 year high in 2022 – a period in which there had been a massive increase in the adoption of SUVs.

Wolmar doesn't give links to his sources, which is enough to get him thrown out of the Ancient Order of Bloggers, but I've found what looks like the story he is quoting here. It's behind The Age's paywall.

He also cites research on deaths in child pedestrians after they are stuck by SUVs:

While SUVs are 44 per cent more likely to kill an adult pedestrian or cyclist in a crash compared with an ordinary ‘sedan’, for children the figure is a shocking 82 per cent. This is the story of bull bars (which I have cited in a previous substack, here) being repeated, but this time no one is, so far, making a fuss about it. 

A quote from a local police officer sums up the extra danger: "They are large vehicles, designed for a certain specific task that are being used on roads that perhaps aren’t fit for that task". In London, they are dismissively called Chelsea tractors and they serve no rational purpose in an urban environment.

The quotation from the police officer, at least, appears to come from behind another Australian newspaper paywall – this time the Sydney Morning Herald.

And cites a research from nearer home:

The evidence over the extra danger posed by these vehicles is mounting which hopefully will put pressure on governments to act. According to a recent study by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, children under the age of 10 are three times more likely to be killed if struck by an SUV rather than a standard sized cars. 

The link I've provided will take you to a news story about the research on the LSHTM website. You can read the academic paper that contains it on the British Medical Journal site.

Christian Wolmar reminds us that this government came to power promising a new road safety strategy, but it has yet to appear:

I suspect the delay over the road strategy is the result of ministers’ concerns that the motoring industry is not going to like what it might recommend. The growth in sales of SUV has boosted the profits of the car manufacturers as these bigger vehicles are more expensive and, indeed, massively overpriced, and trying to rein back on their sales will not go down in an industry that Labour sees as crucial for its growth agenda.

The Joy of Six 1455

"By restricting jury trials, removing protest rights and expanding surveillance, Labour is entrenching an authoritarian legal infrastructure that a far-right government will not hesitate to exploit." Karl Hansen says Labour is building Farage's state for him.

Phoebe Weston reports on the French ski resorts that are closing as the snow line in the Alps edges higher: "In France, there are today 113 ski lifts totalling nearly 40 miles (63km) in length that have been abandoned, nearly three-quarters of them in protected areas."

Catherine Rampell says Trump is misusing Norman Rockwell's art to promote Gestapo tactics and nativist ideas: "The works have been endlessly parodied since their introduction in 1943. In the internet age, they’ve become ubiquitously memed. (Freedom of Speech, for example, is nowadays widely known as the 'unpopular opinion' meme.) But originally, they served as wartime propaganda, meant to help rally support for America and its cause during the years of war against the Nazis."

"Take Me High's unexpected legacy is to act as a kind of Brummie Rorschach test: what do you see in its depiction of the angular 'new' Birmingham of 1973? An ugly, car-worshipping mess that, like Cliff's career, needed desperate reinvention? An ambitious feat of post-war planning? Or a nostalgic vision of your childhood? It’s a question that becomes more poignant with each landmark razed and every area redeveloped beyond recognition." Shaun Patrick Hand has discovered the Cliff Richard film from 1973.

"Raynor’s efforts simply render the magnificent landscapes of Devon and Cornwall as joyless, grey backdrops to her own ceaseless complaining. The South West Coast Path should sue for defamation of character." Finlay McLaren takes aim at The Salt Path.

Andy Marshall chooses and photographs his all-time best pubs.

Hunting ley lines in Shropshire: The view from Stapeley Hill

It turns out I've posted the second (Caus Castle) and third (Worthen) videos in this series, but not the first. So here it is.

My serious walking days in the Eighties and Nineties reinforced my scepticism about ley lines: once you've climbed to a ridge you stay up there as long as possible. But this video does explore a fascinating landscape: I remember finding an ancient and overgrown holloway on Stapeley Hill myself.

And if that doesn't convince you, just think of this as Shropshire hill porn.

Walking Charles Dickens' London with John Rogers

Here's a seasonal treat: a tour of the areas of London associated with Charles Dickens – or at least some of them -– in the company of John Rogers.

John's YouTube blurb for this walk explains:

This Charles Dickens London Walking tour starts in Southwark where Dickens lived as a child while his father was held in Marshalsea Prison on Borough High Street. This influenced much of his writing, most notably Little Dorrit. There are also multiple references to character in The Pickwick Papers around Borough. 

After stopping by The George Tavern where Dickens used to drink we cross London Bridge which is mentioned in multiple Dickens novels - most strikingly in Oliver  Twist, we walk through the City of London, The Magic Lantern, visiting various locations mentioned in the works of Charles Dickens including St Peter's Cornhill, The Guildhall, The Bank of England, Mansion House. We also look for the site of the first address the Dickens family stayed at on Wood Street when they arrived from Chatham. 

From here we go via St Bartholomew's Hospital, site of the Fortune of War pub (A Tale of Two Cities) before going to Bleeding Heart Yard (Little Dorrit), Saffron Hill (Oliver Twist) and finishing at The Dickens Museum in Doughty Street.

John has a Patreon account to support his videos and he blogs at The Lost Byway.

A stroll along the Thames Path from Hampton Court to Shepperton

A lovely walk in autumn sunshine. John Rogers describes it thus in his YouTube blurb:

Starting at Hampton Court Station in East Molesey we walk one of the most beautiful sections of the wonderful Thames Path. 

We pass through Hurst Park, look across the river at Taggs Island, Garrick's Temple, pass by Molesey Reservoirs with its WW2 tank defences, stop for lunch at Walton Marina and cross the river at Walton Bridge. 

Our walk is guided by Donald Maxwell's 1932 book A Pilgrimage of the Thames and takes us to the ancient St Nicholas church at Shepperton. A church has stood on the site since the 7th Century. 

Our Thames path odyssey ends at the Shepperton home of author J.G Ballard.

John has a Patreon account to support his videos and blogs at The Lost Byway.