“... crossbar of a bike. I’ve never seen this before and find it cheering. 1 October. I am reading Geoffrey Moorhouse’s book on the Pilgrimage of Grace and have reached the point in October 1536 when Robert Aske and the huge rebel host are at Doncaster waiting to move south, virtually unopposed. It’s a campaign that would surely have changed the course of ...”

“... several of the poems while living in Belfast. Longley continued to regard the book (alongside Ted Hughes’s Lupercal and Geoffrey Hill’s first collection, For the Unfallen) as a milestone, and he remembered his response: ‘A tradition that’s still throwing up poets like Larkin, Hill and ...”

“... who represented swashbuckling capitalism; Keith Joseph, who represented high-minded anti-statism; Geoffrey Howe, who represented disciplined proto-monetarism. But she saw them all off easily. In this she was greatly helped by their obvious lack of leadership qualities. Du Cann was cavalier and untrustworthy; Joseph was flaky and depressive; Howe was deadly ...”

“... of Men, has resonances of Tom Brown’s School Days, published half a century earlier. Thomas Hughes immortalised Dr Arnold’s Rugby; Hornung does the same for Thring’s Uppingham. Compare the Squire’s memorable meditation before sending Tom off to boarding school: ‘What is he sent to school for? Well, partly because he wanted to go. If he’ll only ...”