Book description
In these evocative and elegiac writings L. T. C. Rolt meditates on
landscape, history, poetry, steam railways, vintage cars and the
endless summer days of his childhood. He also recalls his many happy
boating voyages on Britain's canals: the peace and tranquillity, the
wildlife and people, the changing scenery as he travelled from county
to county, and the role he played in preserving the waterways for
future generations.
Generations of inhabitants have helped shape the English
countryside - but it has profoundly shaped us too. It has provoked a
huge variety of responses from artists, writers, musicians and
people who live and work on the land - as well as those who are
travelling through it.English Journeys celebrates this long
tradition with a series of twenty books on all aspects of the
countryside, from stargazey pie and country churches, to man's
relationship with nature and songs celebrating the patterns of the
countryside (as well as ghosts and love-struck soldiers).
L. T. C. Rolt (1910-1974) was the noted biographer of major civil
engineering figures such as Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Thomas Telford.
Co-founder of the Inland Waterways Association, he was one of the
pioneers of the leisure cruising industry on Britain's canals, as well
as a classic car and heritage railway enthusiast.
