Cobblestones Cottages & Castles

Cobblestones, Cottages and Castles was a TV series produced in 1989 by TSW (Television South West) and was little known outside of the TSW region. I picked the 1st book up from an old 2nd hand book shop one day. Had never heard of the series before despite having spent quite a bit of time in the West Country (I do remember Gus Honeybun though) but once I had flicked through the pages realised I had in fact visited a lot of the places mentioned. In the book David Young covers The Rhenish Tower Lynmouth, The Hanging Chapel Langport, King Alfreds Tower Stourhead, The Coffin House Brixham, Burrow Mump, Gold Hill Shaftesbury (Hovis Ad) The Somerset levels and Trackways, Clapper Bridge Postbridge, The Giant Zodiac Glastonbury, Posy Tree Mapperton and many many more curious and interesting places and things.
The only thing I could find on YouTube was a very blurred intro from the series.
Quite a few copies of all three books are available on Ebay
A bit here on the history of TSW, David Young gets a mention.

1970: Kitsch, Kes etc

More here: FLICKR

1970: Rebel Generation

More from The New Universal Library 1971 Yearbook.  It might be easier to read the text on Flickr (click the pic, then click again to see full size): The New Universal Library 1971 Yearbook

1970

Scans from The New Universal Library 1971 Yearbook, looking back at 1970.

Note heavy Times / Telegraph presence

 

Worth seeing the full spread

 

See bits from previous year's publication here: 1969

Ray's days

Quite a life, veteran broadcaster and writer Ray Gosling, whose specialty was reporting on the quirks and oddities of British life.



I knew him mostly as a radio voice - remembering in particular a short program for Radio 4 he did about Julie Burchill. Which featured a first-time-hearing for most everybody of her voice - unexpectedly soft, high, fluting and West Country accented, more like Sophie from Detectorists than the formidable and intimidating print persona as NME 's resident punk ideologue.




Quite an acute analysis There of a shift from the old class-struggle based system (ruling class, bourgeois, organised proud and stubborn working class) to have-a-lots, haves, and have-nothings (underclass that is plural, fractured, lacking solidarity or a positive self-identity)

The Ray Gosling Archive - and judging by the shots of him in his office, nearly buried in papers, clippings, folders, books, newspapers, and what not, he was quite an archivist in his own right.

Did not know that he was a gay rights activist, an anarchist (I don't know if literally, in the CRASS sense - by temperament most likely).

The alcohol intake seems par for the course for writers of that era and type.

Somehow I bracket him in my head with J.B. Priestley - both Northern, left-wing, insanely prolific (a book or more a year in Priestley's case, plus innumerable essays and articles) and with wide-ranging interests.

Test Transmission all things Keith Seatman and more: Something for 2020

Test Transmission all things Keith Seatman and more: Something for 2020: New Album Keith Seatman Time to Dream But Never Seen Jan/Feb 2020