I have lived in Yorkshire for over thirty years now and I love my adopted county. In Now Then the author Rick Broadbent who grew up in Yorkshire but who has since moved elsewhere explores the county and tries to sum up its character and what makes it unique.
Yorkshire is the biggest county in England and it has a large range of landscapes and traditions and the author tries to encompass as many of those as he can. He explores the literary tradition, the post-industrial cities, the football heritage, the coastal resorts and the countryside. He looks at popular depictions of Yorkshire and tries to ascertain how true they are. He travels to these places and recounts their history and what he observes – he also speaks to local inhabitants, some famous and some ordinary people. He writes with a wry humour and includes stories and anecdotes which are less well known but often interesting and quirky. I recognised a lot of what he writes about and enjoyed seeing the county through his eyes. He is careful to include the bad with the good and certainly isn’t seeing the county with rose tinted glasses.
The problem with this book, for me, was in how the author tries to sum up the character of Yorkshire people and how they are special. Fond as I am of my neighbours and other inhabitants of Yorkshire I actually don’t think that their character is any different from people who live elsewhere. I think that the culture is different so people are more openly friendly and more inclined to say what they think but that doesn’t make their characters any different. I think that any inhabitant of any county in Britain could write about their people and places with the same affection and would probably make a case for them being special and different.
Read this for the affectionate portrait of a county which is beautiful and has a rich culture, history and landscape as part of a country which is full of variety and richness in all its corners.
Anne Is Reading 