As a tour guide for Hampshire, Jane Austen is one of our biggest characters, indeed heros, in our guided tours.  2025 was a birthday year – happy 250 th  birthday Jane on 16 th December - and as with all TV and film adapted literary giants it was big business and it was a time to celebrate her, although such is her perennial popularity that she always has a dedicated following.  Clever, confident, relatable and readable, new for the time and creative – she did so much to dev

The word water meadows sounds so pastoral, so idyllic, cool on a summers day, grazing cattle, green hay with a slow, sparkling stretch of...

The Manor Farm The rock-like mud unfroze a little and rills Ran and sparkled down each side of the road Under the catkins wagging in the...

I was recently asked to do a tour for a group of students around Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, but the catch was they were studying Jane...

St Swithun’s day falls on the 15th July although we don’t seem to celebrate his feast day much anymore, and nobody’s called Swithun these...