Growing up between Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields in Liverpool 18, I used to visit Calderstones Park often, more obsessed at that age with playing on piles of old logs than the stones that gave it its name. Ten days ago I went back to savour the place and take a refreshing dose of Scouse humour. In the process I found the Calder Stones themselves, now dated to the Neolithic era, cleaned up, and displayed in a wonderful new setting in the park. John Lennon’s house was just around the corner, but whether his memory will last 5,000 + years remains to be seen!
Now it’s back to school, as it were, with a u3a nationwide talk on Monday (600 signed up so far) and a visit to Wantage a few days later to talk about life in England after Alfred. Then it’s off to Gascony to see what the Plantagenets spent all those years fighting for…