William Edgar Oddie is an English writer, comedian, songwriter, musician, artist, birder, conservationist, television presenter and actor. He was a member of comedy trio The Goodies.
Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces the French department of Pas-de-Calais across the Strait of Dover. The county town is Maidstone. It is the fifth most populous county in England, the most populous non-Metropolitan county and the most populous of the home counties.
Sussex, from the Old English Sūþsēaxe, is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English Channel, and divided for many purposes into the ceremonial counties of West Sussex and East Sussex.
Alan Bennett is an English actor, author, playwright and screenwriter. He was born in Leeds and attended Oxford University, where he studied history and performed with the Oxford Revue. He stayed to teach and research medieval history at the university for several years. His collaboration as writer and performer with Dudley Moore, Jonathan Miller and Peter Cook in the satirical revue Beyond the Fringe at the 1960 Edinburgh Festival brought him instant fame. He gave up academia, and turned to writing full-time, his first stage play, Forty Years On, being produced in 1968.
James Alfred Wight, better known by his pen name James Herriot, was a British veterinary surgeon and author.
The historic counties of England are areas that were established for administration by the Normans, in many cases based on earlier kingdoms and shires created by the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Celts and others. They are alternatively known as ancient counties, traditional counties, former counties or simply as counties. In the centuries that followed their establishment, as well as their administrative function, the counties also helped define local culture and identity. This role continued even after the counties ceased to be used for administration after the creation of administrative counties in 1889, which were themselves amended by further local government reforms in the years following.
The home counties are the counties of England that surround London. The counties are not precisely defined but Buckinghamshire and Surrey are usually included in definitions and Berkshire, Essex, Hertfordshire and Kent are also often included. Other counties further from London — such as Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Hampshire, Oxfordshire, East Sussex and West Sussex — are not normally regarded as home counties, although on occasion may be thought of as such due to their proximity to London and their connection to the London regional economy.
Charles Roger Hargreaves, better known as Roger Hargreaves, was an English author and illustrator of children's books. He created the Mr. Men and Little Miss series, intended for young readers. The simple and humorous stories, with brightly coloured, boldly drawn illustrations, have sales of over 85 million copies worldwide in 20 languages. The first title in the series, Mr. Tickle, was published in August 1971.
Simon James Holliday Gray was an English playwright and memoirist who also had a career as a university lecturer in English literature at Queen Mary, University of London, for 20 years. While teaching at Queen Mary, Gray began his writing career as a novelist in 1963 and, during the next 45 years, in addition to five published novels, wrote 40 original stage plays, screenplays, and screen adaptations of his own and others' works for stage, film, and television and became well known for the self-deprecating wit characteristic of several volumes of memoirs or diaries.
Ian Douglas Nairn was a British architectural critic who coined the word "Subtopia" to indicate drab suburbs that look identical through unimaginative town-planning. He published two strongly personalised critiques of London and Paris, and collaborated with Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, who considered his reports to be too subjective, but acknowledged him as the better writer.
Nigel Nicolson was an English writer, publisher and politician.
England is divided by a number of different regional schemes for various purposes. Since the creation of the Government Office Regions in 1994 and their adoption for statistical purposes in 1999, some historical regional schemes have become obsolete. However, many alternative regional designations also exist and continue to be widely used.
Asa Briggs, Baron Briggs was an English historian. He was a leading specialist on the Victorian era, and the foremost historian of broadcasting in Britain. Briggs achieved international recognition during his long and prolific career for examining various aspects of modern British history. He became a life peer in 1976.
Levett is a surname of Anglo-Norman origin, deriving from that of the French de Livet, which is held particularly by families and individuals resident in England and British Commonwealth territories.
The Pevsner Architectural Guides are a series of guide books to the architecture of Great Britain and Ireland. Begun in the 1940s by the art historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, the 46 volumes of the original Buildings of England series were published between 1951 and 1974. The series was then extended to Scotland, Wales and Ireland in the late 1970s. Most of the English volumes have had subsequent revised and expanded editions, chiefly by other authors.
Oliver Edward Robinson is an English professional cricketer who plays for Sussex County Cricket Club. He made his first-class cricket debut in 2015 and is a right-arm fast-medium bowler and a right-handed batsman. He made his international debut for the England cricket team in June 2021.
The County Books series, by Robert Hale and Company of London, covered counties and regions in the British Isles. It was launched in March 1947, and began with Kent, Surrey and Sussex. The series was announced as completed in 1954, in 60 volumes, with Lowlands of Scotland: Edinburgh and the South by Maurice Lindsay. The announced intention was to give "a true and lively picture of each county and people".
John Arthur Newman is an English architectural historian. He is the author of several of the Pevsner Architectural Guides and is the advisory editor to the series.
John Talbot White was a British lecturer, naturalist, and writer. He was known for his contributions to The Guardian's Country Diary and for his books about the topography and natural history of South East England and particularly the county of Kent. He committed suicide after becoming depressed following redundancy, but not before posting his last column to The Guardian.
The Face of Britain was a series of topographical books published by B. T. Batsford from the 1930s to the 1950s that has been described as playing a part in the construction of English identity in that period. The series is notable for the covers by Brian Batsford, who worked under the name Brian Cook.
