One of my Christmas presents was this – About Britain No. 8: East Midlands and the Peak, one of a series of little books produced for the Festival of Britain in 1951. The delightful title page of this one is by Sheila Robinson, one of the Great Bardfield artists, and others in the series are by Kenneth Rowntree and Barbara Jones, among others. The general editor (and author of the first two volumes) was Geoffrey Grigson, one of the last English writers who could fairly be described as a 'man of letters'. The introductory Portrait of the region in my East Midlands volume is written by none other than W.G. Hoskins, author of the classic The Making of the English Landscape.
The preface, presumably written by Grigson, breathes the spirit of quiet confidence, hope and national pride that characterised the Festival of Britain: 'The Festival shows how the British people, with their energy and natural resources, contribute to civilisation. So the guide-books as well celebrate a European country alert, ready for the future, and strengthened by a tradition which you can see in its remarkable monuments and products of history and even pre-history.' Over the ensuing decades, that spirit sadly ebbed away, as was demonstrated all too clearly by the farrago of vacuous ahistorical gestures that were the best the cultural panjandrums could come up with to mark the Millennium.
Opposite the title page of my volume is this bookplate – another reminder of how long ago the Festival was...
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