FOLLOWING THE FOOTSTEPS
Journalist Matthew Engel hits the road to explore the highways and byways of England’s counties, following in the footsteps of amongst others Daniel Defoe, William Cobbett and JB Priestley. The result is a quirky, humorous account of local histories, sardonic observations, and examples of central government redrawing boundaries for political reasons. There’s much in this book to leave a smile on the face or provoke the odd belly laugh, although I don’t think the residents of Surrey will find much to guffaw about!
Engel is hardly a fan and the title of the county’s dedicated chapter “Adventures in the state your business belt,” is a pretty good clue as to where he’s coming from. Endless acres of woodland make Surrey “the world’s biggest trompe l’oeil” and somewhere in the growth live the inhabitants, “shy woodland creatures, probably nocturnal”. Although Surrey’s green belt credentials give it an exhilarating quality, money and property are the chief “obsessions”. St George’s Hill may be famed for its “enviable lifestyle”, but executive houses shielded by shrubbery, high walls, and security gates make it a “nice place to endure house arrest while cowering from your enemies.”
Yet surprisingly there are some glimmers of praise in five and a half pages of evisceration. Warlingham is “pleasantly unpretentious” while Farleigh, four miles from the centre of Croydon with its “twisted hawthorns”, horses grazing in “thistly fields” and small Norman church, is a revelation…a genuine English village, the sort of place “where a man might breathe”. Ah!
Reviewed by Juliette Foster
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