If there’s one local place name that sends a shudder down the spine it must be “Quicksand Pool”. We’ve all heard the chilling stories of deaths on the sands of Morecambe Bay — the hidden channels, the racing tide and the treacherous quicksands that trap and …

Early last year I embarked on a local history pilgrimage. I caught the 7.08 train from Carnforth to Leeds, planning to visit the grave of Warton’s earliest known local historian, the school- master John Lucas. His history of Warton Parish was written between 1710 and …

What kind of cover do you put on a reprint of a local history book written 300 years ago? There is – sadly – no known portrait of the author, John Lucas. No parish maps or pastoral scenes of the right age survive.  The new …

Images l-r: Borwick Hall, Arnset Tower, Plumbs and a map of the Parish John Lucas gives us some quite vivid information about parish life in the early eighteenth century. But from the moment I decided to reprint his book, I felt certain that a new …

  ‘Leighton Moss Ice Age to Present Day’ has now been on sale for a week and seems to be going well. We launched it  at the RSPB visitor centre last Saturday complete with tea and world famous drizzle cake supplied by the great folk …

While we’re celebrating the RSPB’s 50th anniversary at Leighton Moss, it’s worth reflecting that interest in the wildfowl on the site goes back a lot further. This wonderful illustration — by Alice Watterson (of whom more below) — shows a hunter gatherer. He’s the sort …

The book has now gone to the printers and this is the final version of the front cover — a bit spruced up from the earlier dummy.  It’s a  clever combination of two great photos. The idea came from my publisher, the redoubtable Anna Goddard …

When Leighton Moss flooded at the end of the Great War the owners faced what might be termed a problem of rebranding. Between 1850 and 1918 the drained Moss had been known as “The Golden Valley”– one of the most productive cereal-producing areas in Northern …

I’m so glad I managed to get down to the Moss for sun-rise this morning. There is a timeless quality to the reserve at dawn. The duck were still snoozing but the red deer were out in numbers around Grisedale hide. Perhaps the scene would …

OK … not the best start to the ‘Where’s Midge?’ competition. No-one seemed to know where Midge was/is in the photo on the left. To be fair, now I look at it again there is not much to go on.  Admittedly my old friend Ian …