Parliamentary historian, chronicler of "Titanic"'s sinking and Churchill's ascent, annotator of Kipling and of Kenneth Grahame: GMW Wemyss is, admittedly, these, but much more is he the West Country's beloved essayist, the wry, fond observer of rural humour, chalk-streams, proper gardens, and real ale; village cricket, Evensong, and Lib Dems in their natural habitat. These collected essays tell of the great themes and small doings of the Valley of the River Wylye, the twenty-st- ... er, twenty-scone Baker's Daughter and her dreams of an empire of the Higher Nosh, river and village, trout and...

"Trollopean clerics, comic peers with hidden depths, the villagers of a thousand cosy English novels ... but in a very modern world: our own." The Woolfonts are the prettiest and most placid villages in England. There's a Free School; a real-ale pub; a district XI that sweeps all before it; three splendid old churches; and the duke of Taunton presiding in a kindly way over it all - and he's not, actually, the light comedy turn he chooses to pretend to be. There's a celebrated restaurant, as well, run by the celebrated 'Hipster Chef', and he's not the only village celebrity: there's also his...