Essex Man About Tarn

A Lake District epiphany for an Essex Man features in my new Kindle Single book Man About Tarn. There's a chapter devoted to the Shenfield School Geography A Level field trip of 1976 where I yomp up to Stickle Tarn in a pair of high-leg Doctor Martens. Where were the Ford Cortinas and burger vans? It was like Essex — but with tarns and mountains and no shops called Mr Byrite. 

"My home county is peopled by geezers driving done-up Ford Cortinas, with their names emblazoned in sun-strips stuck across the windscreen. My parents are tenant farmers who don’t do holidays because they can’t leave their cattle. You can see the Post Office tower on the horizon from my dad’s fields and there are plans to build a motorway across his land. It’s the last piece of green land before greater London. For most people in Brentwood the countryside means a country club with chicken in a basket and maybe a glimpse of a West Ham footballer. A trip to the mudflats of Southend down the A12 Arterial road or a hippy bonfire at Mersea Island is my Essex idea of adventure. But here are the biggest mountains I’ve ever seen."

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