Essex village locals baffled by £7k duck crossing sign because they have 'no ducks'

"Unlike the England cricket team," remarked one of the judges. Together with her fellows, she gave our Headline of the Day Award to Essex Live.

Alwyn Turner on the political radicalism of L. du Garde Peach

I'm enjoying Alwyn Turner's new book A Shellshocked Nation: Britain Between the Wars, and not just because my name turns up in the acknowledgements at the back. As Andrew Marr says in his New Statesman review, 

Turner builds his account on newspapers and popular magazines. This produces a bottom-up, sharp and often surprising read. 

And Turner's research is commendably thorough. Here he is on L. du Garde Peach, sharing far more than I knew about the author of most of Ladybird Books' Adventures from History series:

If the stage and screen were tightly censored The same was not quite true of the BBC, which had a greater tolerance for political work, so long as it was progressive without being revolutionary. The dramatist L. du Garde Peach, described by the papers as "broadcasting's most versatile playwright" was a committed writer – a failed Liberal parliamentary candidate, and a supporter of the League of Nations and the Peace Pledge Union – and some of his BBC work dealt with difficult subjects: the economic exploitation of Africa in Ingredient X (1929), rural poverty in Bread (1932), the Elizabethan roots of the slave trade in John Hawkins, Slaver (1933), local politics in Our Town (1935).

In Patriotism Ltd (1937), a satirical one-act drama, Peach depicted an arms company deliberately provoking conflict between the invented nations of Andania and Segoviaa And selling weapons to both. It was a story, he said, of "two countries brought to the brink of war by a mixture of buffoonery, self-interest and opportunism which you will find nowhere else in the world except in most of the Chancelleries of Europe. Advance notices said it had a "simple directness that is continually amusing", and talked of the way it exposed "bland cynicism on the part of the firm and its customers".

Three days before its scheduled broadcast, however, the government leaned on the BBC, and the piece was withdrawn, on the grounds that "it might be mistaken for a comment on current national affairs". Which, of course, it was. "No direct veto has been exercised by the Postmaster General," it was reported, but the BBC was given to understand that such a broadcast would be looked upon in an unfavourable light." Peach, who was not personally told about the ban, was furious: "I regard the action as just another instance of BBC timidity."

Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Otto.

Jeff Buckley: Lover, You Should've Come Over

When Jeff Buckley drowned at the age 30, he had released just one album but was an internationally celebrated artist. His name is often yoked with that of his father Tim Buckley, who died two years younger, but they only met once.

Richard Jefferies: If we had never before looked upon the earth

During Covid lockdown in 2020, the actor Simon Russell Beale, who lives in the town, recorded some readings from the work of my man Richard Jefferies for the Marlborough Literary Festival. You can still find them on the festival's website.

The extract below is from one of those readings. It's taken from Jefferies' essay Wild Flowers, which is included in his collection The Open Air, published in 1885.

If we had never before looked upon the earth, but suddenly came to it man or woman grown, set down in the midst of a summer mead, would it not seem to us a radiant vision? The hues, the shapes, the song and life of birds, above all the sunlight, the breath of heaven, resting on it; the mind would be filled with its glory, unable to grasp it, hardly believing that such things could be mere matter and no more. Like a dream of some spirit-land it would appear, scarce fit to be touched lest it should fall to pieces, too beautiful to be long watched lest it should fade away. 

So it seemed to me as a boy, sweet and new like this each morning; and even now, after the years that have passed, and the lines they have worn in the forehead, the summer mead shines as bright and fresh as when my foot first touched the grass. It has another meaning now; the sunshine and the flowers speak differently, for a heart that has once known sorrow reads behind the page, and sees sadness in joy. But the freshness is still there, the dew washes the colours before dawn. Unconscious happiness in finding wild flowers—unconscious and unquestioning, and therefore unbounded. 

I used to stand by the mower and follow the scythe sweeping down thousands of the broad-flowered daisies, the knotted knapweeds, the blue scabious, the yellow rattles, sweeping so close and true that nothing escaped; and, yet although I had seen so many hundreds of each, although I had lifted armfuls day after day, still they were fresh. They never lost their newness, and even now each time I gather a wild flower it feels a new thing. 

The greenfinches came to the fallen swathe so near to us they seemed to have no fear; but I remember the yellowhammers most, whose colour, like that of the wild flowers and the sky, has never faded from my memory. The greenfinches sank into the fallen swathe, the loose grass gave under their weight and let them bathe in flowers.

Thank you. I needed that. 

What the latest Epstein revelations mean for the Royal Family

I review Andrew Lownie's Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York in the latest Liberator. 

Here he talks about what the revelations contained in the latest batch of Epstein files mean for the Royal Family – Andrew and Fergie in particular.

The Joy of Six 1470

Timothy Snyder reports from a frightened city: "In the schools and churches of Springfield, Ohio, people are making hasty preparations for a “large deportation” promised by the president. To all appearances, and according to local sources, the city is two or three days away from a federal ethnic cleansing, grounded in a hate campaign organized by the vice-president and American Nazis. The destined victims are ten thousand or more Haitians."

"I think the way he is trying to interfere with our democracy, generally our country, is quite outrageous. For the richest man to come here with his totally unfounded and ignorant comments is shocking." Interviewed by Big Issue, Ed Davey sticks it to Elon Musk.

"The use of armed militia to terrorise the inhabitants of Minneapolis is not just beyond the rule of law, it is fascistic. It’s the final evidential point between what is happening today and the political forces that ripped Europe apart in the last century: and that’s not just me saying this, it’s some of the most eminent historians of authoritarianism." Carole Cadwalladr says what’s happening in the US is technofascism and it could happen here.

Madeleine Brettingham on the difficulty of making a living as a writer today: "The biggest revolution in how writing is distributed since the printing press has decimated all our assumptions about how creative careers work. Somewhere between the noughties and the pandemic everything changed, leaving many (including me) attempting to climb up ladders that no longer exist."

Norma Clarke reviews a book on working-class lives in Charlie Chaplin's London: "Charlie was a gutter child, a 'street arab' in the language of the time: undersized, skinny, his bright eyes on the main chance as he roamed up and down between Kennington and New Cut, where market stalls overflowed with produce he had no money to buy and probably became adept at stealing."

Did a tsunami hit the Bristol Channel four centuries ago? Simon Haslett revisits the great flood of 1607.

When Peter Lee took 8-13 for Great Bowden

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Peter Lee, the former Northamptonshire and Lancashire seam bowler, has died at the age of 80.

He grew up near Market Harborough in the Northamptonshire village of Sibbertoft and made his debut for that county in 1967. 

But it was when he moved to Lancashire in 1972 that his career really took off. He twice took 100 wickets in a season for them in an era when the feat was already becoming vanishingly rare, but never won test selection.

A trawl of the British Newspaper Archive reveals this story from the Leicester Daily Mercury, 6 August 1980. Great Bowden is nearly, but not quite, part of Market Harborough:

Bowden's Secret Weapon Shocks Wigston

Wigston Town cricketers had a nasty shock in their match against Great Bowden for they found themselves facing Lancashire pace bowler Peter Lee.

After Great Bowden had made 131. Wigston were blasted out for 88 with Lee taking 8-13.

Lee hails from a village called Sibbertoft which is just over the border in Northamptonshire and has two brothers in the Bowden team.

He has been injured recently and his guest appearance was part of his build-up to regain full fitness.

Wigston were on the receiving end another top-line bowler some years ago when Harold Rhodes took all 10 wickets against them for just 11 runs in a match at Matlock.

Ed Davey is right to call for police investigation of Peter Mandelson

These allegations are incredibly serious, it is now only right that the police investigate Peter Mandelson for potential misconduct in public office.

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— Ed Davey (@eddavey.libdems.org.uk) 2 February 2026 at 15:00

Ed Davey is right:

These allegations are incredibly serious, it is now only right that the police investigate Peter Mandelson for potential misconduct in public office.

The prime minister, it seems, has just announced a Cabinet Office inquiry into the affair, but there's a danger that it will just be good chaps investigating other good chaps and end up being seen as a whitewash. So let's send for the men in big boots.

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.

Sir Walter Scott invented "The Wars of the Roses"

Here's an interesting passage from Chris Given-Wilson in a recent London Review of Books:

There are several earlier references, dating back at least to the early 14th century, to red and white roses being used occasionally as insignia by the families later associated with the Lancastrian and Yorkist causes, but it was not until Shakespeare picked up on the idea in Henry VI Part I... that it entered the popular imagination. ...

It was another two hundred years before Walter Scott’s novel Anne of Geierstein, published in 1829, brought the idea of the ‘wars of the White and Red Roses’ into common usage. Since then it has become synonymous with the political turmoil which, between 1455 and 1485, saw four English kings deposed (one of them twice) and fifteen internecine ‘battles’ – some of them in reality just skirmishes – fought on English soil, from Dartford in Kent to Hexham in Northumberland to Mortimer’s Cross on the Welsh border.

There are those, of course, who would like to bin the label, but that is a vain hope. During the last quarter of the 20th century at least seven British historians published monographs entitled The Wars of the Roses, and scholars in the 21st century appear to be trying to keep pace.

Sure enough, Given-Wilson was reviewing The Wars of the Roses: A Medieval Civil War by John Watts.

Obliging reader's voice: I gather the death of Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth is accepted as having marked the end of these wars. Have you by any chance contributed an article that touches upon it to Central Bylines recently?

Liberal England replies: Why yes! Yes I have.

The Joy of Six 1469

"What matters is not the books themselves, but the thinking they reward. They cultivate a taste for compression over depth, for transferable lessons over context, for confidence over uncertainty. They attract people who want the world to be legible in a handful of rules, who prefer inspiration to explanation, and who mistake momentum for understanding. Over time, this becomes a habit of mind: a way of approaching problems that privileges clarity and speed over patience and complexity." John Oxley fears British politics is suffering from Airport Book Brain.

Rosalind KennyBirch looks at the way Finland counters fake news. "There is no vaccine for fake news, but media literacy can come close."

Rose Runswick has posted Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's election address from 1906. Here he is on the record of the Conservatives: "The legacy which they have bequeathed to their successors – and I say it in no partisan spirit, but under a full sense of responsibility – is in the main a legacy of embarrassment, an accumulation of public mischief and confusion absolutely appalling in its extent and its ramifications."

"The Israel-Palestine conflict is often framed as a religious struggle between Muslim and Jewish groups, but the witness of Palestinian Christians exposes the hollowness of that narrative. It is a nationalist struggle between Israelis and Palestinians." John McHugo highlights the plight of Palestinian Christians.

"Stoke-on-Trent says it is facing a heritage emergency and needs £325m in public and private funding to safeguard its historic sites and stories," reports Rebecca Atkinson.

Gráinne Maguire lists five things Is This Thing On? gets wrong about the world of stand up: "Will Arnett has all the natural funny bones of a dead family pet. He wears the same expression the entire time—startled and blinking, like Eeyore caught looking up porn at work and hauled into HR. Yet we're supposed to believe this set – more misguided late-night voice note than comedy – is all it takes for him to be embraced by the world of comedy."

Lord Bonkers' Diary: it would be a pity if anything happened to them

Christmas week ends on a downbeat note. I've never been convinced that it was a good idea for F&F (that's Freddie and Fiona – the old boy has taken to using abbreviations in his diary, but then why shouldn't he?) to buy a weekend cottage in Rutland; they were always likely to upset the locals. 

And as Lord Bonkers has often remarked of the Elves of Rockingham Forest, "you don't want to get on the wrong side of these fellows".

Sunday

Back to St Asquith’s – I ought to get a season ticket what? – and then, after sherry with the Revd Hughes, to the Bonkers Arms for a pre-lunch stiffener. I find the talk is all of Freddie and Fiona and what they were saying at my Christmas Day party. Word has got about that they were talking about “privatising health” and it has Not Gone Down Well – we happen to be very proud of our cottage hospital. 

Worse than that, a garbled version of the story has reached Rockingham Forest in which they want to “privatise elf”, and you can just imagine how that was received by the local elves. So F&F would be well advised to lie low for a bit. As my old friend Violent BC might have put it, it would be a pity if anything happened to them.

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West 1906-10.

Earlier this week...

• The Duke of Buccleuch is pretty chuffed too
• I hurry to book the rather singed Kwarteng for next year
• At a signal box outside Sherburn in Elmet
• He loves to get his dibber out
• Flags and empty cans of Dahrendorf lager
• Lowered head first through a skylight

The Charlatans: The Only One I Know

"It’s an unusual song construction. I’m still not sure which bit is the chorus. The title and main hook is in the verse, but the intro – before the main song crashes in – gives people just enough time to get on the dancefloor."

That's what the Charlatans' singer and the songs co-writer Tim Burgess told the Guardian in 2021.

He also explained one of the influences on its writing:

"I was 21 or 22, but still had those powerful emotions. I was a big Byrds fan so the line 'Everyone’s been burned before, everyone knows the pain' is a nod to their song Everybody’s Been Burned. I was ecstatic when the Byrds’ Roger McGuinn said he loved us."

The bass player and co-writer Martin Blunt explained another:

"To give The Only One I Know a bit more urgency, Jon Baker added a stream of repetitive guitar notes similar to part of the Supremes' You Keep Me Hangin' On. I remember telling him, ;Try to make it sound like morse code', which he did. After the second chorus, we dropped it down to the bass, like all the best old Stax and funk tunes."

The Only One I Know reached no. 9 in the UK singles chart in September 1990, even though the band refused to appear on Top of the Pops.

I also like what Brunt said about the Charlatans' development:

We’d been influenced by the Stranglers, Stax Records, Joy Division and the Doors, but when everything came together in the summer of 89 acid house was in full swing. The repetitive beats rubbed off on what we were doing, so we suddenly sounded like the Spencer Davis Group on E.