Product Description

Everyone talks about 'Middle England'. Sometimes they mean something bad, like a lynch mob of tabloid readers, and sometimes they mean something good, like a pint of ale in a sleepy Cotswold village. But just where and what is Middle England? Stuart Maconie didn't know either, so he packed his Thermos and sandwiches and set off to find out...Is Middle England about tradition and decency or closed minds and bigotry? Is it maypoles and evensong, or flooded market towns and binge drinkers? Does it hark back to the myth of Merrie England or is it a modern concept borne of Top Gear and Princess Diana? Stuart Maconie leads an expedition by rail and road - via Carnforth and Adelstrop, Scratchwood and Tebay - in search of Jane Austen's Bath, Disgusted's Tunbridge Wells, Tom & Barbara Good's Surbiton, Betjeman and Brent's Slough, Elgar's Malverns, Inspector Barnaby's Midsomer and Thatcher's Grantham - with plenty of stop-offs for tea and pastries along the way.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1511 in Books
• Published on: 2009-03-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Review
'Taken as a whole, the book amounts to a time capsule of England as it is now; it is, in its quirky offbeat way, a celebration of this country's extra-ordinary capacity to accomodate change while remaining essentially the same.' --Mail on Sunday, 8 March, 2009

I love Stuart Maconie - he's one of Briatin's truest and most comforting voices. In High Teas... he explodes the myths and stereotypes of Middle England. My own preconcived notions were banished with this delightful, warm postcard from some of England's most eccentric places.
--Gary Lightbody, Snow Patrol, FHM 1 Jan, 2010

Puffed up and preposterous, but Piers is the Pepys of the celebrity age.
Sam Leith, Daily Mail, 11 December 2009
--Ebury Press

Review
'It is these juxtapositions of the high and the low, the hip and the furiously unfashionable, or, if you like, the sublime and the ridiculous, that make Maconie such an entertaining tour guide.'

Review
'Maconie's gift is finding beauty in the most unexpected places and after reading this you'll want to call up Google maps and plan your own journey. It's a wonderfully enriching read.'