The Joy of Six 1059

"Increasingly people in work cannot afford to provide the necessities of life for themselves and their families. Increasingly, they are having to resort to one of the 2200 food banks in the country to keep going, at least to keep their kids fed to the end of the month." Richard Kemp says we need to share the wealth of the nation more fairly if we are to keep society going,

Tanya Gold reported from Tiverton and Honiton on the eve of polling, saying the Conservatives deserved to lose: "This is not raging North Shropshire, where former Conservatives would denounce Johnson on street-corners, or Chesham and Amersham, where the atmosphere was a kind of gleeful transgression in sunlight. It feels sadder than that: splintered, tetchy, defeated, as if Johnson’s corruption is settling over everything like dust, leaving people bewildered and exhausted."

The government's levelling up agenda is in danger of failing rural areas, argues Graham Biggs.

Sam Ghibaldan remembers Bob Maclennan.

"I hope I do Edward Thomas no disservice in observing that it is as much because of circumstance as the poem's beauty in itself that this poem is so fondly and firmly remembered.  Within three months of that afternoon Britain was at war; three years later Thomas was dead, killed by a shell at Arras.  In March 1963 they came for the station as well.": Dominic N. goes to Adlestrop.

Gordon Askew goes back to Joan Aiken's Midnight is a Place: "For all its lack of originality this is a gripping story, grippingly told. As a historical piece it has not dated in the way of some writing from this era, and remains wonderfully accessible for young readers. I think they will get far more out of this than trying to read Dickens himself whilst still too young."