"Mustn’t Grumble" by Joe Bennett

Invited to travel round England and write about it (and the English), Bennett decided to use H V Morton’s “In Search of England” as a sort of route map [note to self: must find a copy of Morton’s book]

Bennett has tried (though not very hard) to identify “Englishness”. In the end, he thinks it is encapsulated in the BBC’s “Antiques Roadshow” – everyone knws the part they are expected to play and true emotions are masked by politeness and “appropriate” behaviour.

I’m not sure that’s entirely true or sufficient, but the book is an enjoable, easy read, taking the reader to different parts of the country and sampling a few pubs at each stopping-off point – more for the conversation than for the beer