A Kingdom for a Bookshop

BY LIZ HODGKINSON In the early 1960s, two small rural towns 160 miles apart faced similar problems. Their young people were going to university and never returning, leaving the places denuded of their brightest and best. Today, these two towns, Hay-on-Wye (main photograph) on the Welsh border, and St Neots in Cambridgeshire, my own hometown, have very different outcomes. Hay is internationally known as the … Continue reading A Kingdom for a Bookshop

Reduced to Turkish Barbers and Vape Shops

BY LIZ HODGKINSON When I was invited back to my hometown at the end of 2024 to give a talk about my latest book, A Mink Coat in St Neots, I could not believe what confronted me. I had not visited the place for perhaps 30 years, when it still retained some semblance of a small rural town. Now, it was completely unrecognisable from the town … Continue reading Reduced to Turkish Barbers and Vape Shops