Author Archives: Francis Pryor

Late Spring in the Garden

Posted on May 25, 2013

Time for a quick post before I immerse myself in the frantic, if cultured world of the Hay-on-Wye Festival. Time, too, for a quiet stroll through the garden and assessing the state of the season – and we still haven’t … Continue reading →

Posted in Gardening | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,

Nearly A Real Writer!

Posted on May 22, 2013

If I am completely honest with myself (something I try to do as infrequently as possible) I’ve always wanted to be a real writer. ‘But you are!’ I hear my sheepdog Twink bark loyally from outside my office’s open window. … Continue reading →

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For Where is Chatteris?

Posted on May 21, 2013

I can’t think that I’ve lived for as long as I have without discovering the band Half Man Half Biscuit. I thought my life was complete after buying the Leyton Buzzards’ double-sided classic ‘I Don’t Want to Go to Art … Continue reading →

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Grow Your Own. On Spuds and Broad Beans: Better Late than Never

Posted on May 15, 2013

Is the season at last starting to catch-up? If you’d asked me that a week ago, I’d have probably said yes. Now I’m not so sure, as I sit at my desk, with the south-westerly wind howling around the rafters. … Continue reading →

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Of Crowd-funding and Writing

Posted on May 14, 2013

Or should that be: on writing and crowd-funding? In other words, which comes first? I began musing along these lines when I finished Chapter 6 (of 10) in the book I’m currently writing for Penguin. I’d been discussing the impact … Continue reading →

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A Moment of Reality

Posted on May 11, 2013

I spent three years as a student at Cambridge and never did so many things. I never visited the Fitzwilliam Museum. I never went inside King’s College Chapel. And I never visited Madingley American Cemetery. I soon put the first … Continue reading →

Posted in History, In the Long Run | Tagged , , ,

Hold Everything! Alan Cadbury Image Discovered

Posted on May 9, 2013

I’ve been trying to find a picture of Alan Cadbury because the nice people at Unbound thought I ought to give him some publicity in my blog, what with Hay-on-Wye coming up and everything. But when it came to looking through … Continue reading →

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The Compassion of Solitude

Posted on May 5, 2013

I can’t imagine how grim it must be to be a senior member of the Royal Family and always in the public eye. I think it’s the difficulty of getting away from people that makes life in the modern world … Continue reading →

Posted in Landscape, My life | Tagged , ,

Forget the Nuclear Winter: It’s a Nuclear Spring!

Posted on May 3, 2013

I was planning to write a nice considered blog about planting potatoes and broad beans – both jobs that I would normally do in mid- or late March – but it has been such a late season. The trouble with … Continue reading →

Posted in Gardening | Tagged , ,

Writing About Writing: People

Posted on May 1, 2013

When I was a teenager I remember reading somewhere that an author – quite a famous one, I think – had to write. I can remember at the time I cringed. It sounded so precious and so pseudo-sensitive. Then, as … Continue reading →

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