About Britain cover art

About Britain

A Journey of 70 Years and 1,345 Miles

Preview

£0.00 for first 30 days

Try for £0.00
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

About Britain

By: Tim Cole
Narrated by: Matt Addis
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

Bloomsbury presents About Britain by Tim Cole, read by Matt Addis.

A captivating glimpse of Britain then and now, seen from behind the steering wheel.

In 1951, the Festival of Britain commissioned a series of short guides they dubbed ‘handbooks for the explorer’. Their aim was to encourage readers to venture out beyond the capital and on to ‘the roads and the by-roads’ to see Britain as a ‘living country’.

Yet these thirteen guides did more than celebrate the rural splendour of this ‘island nation’: they also made much of Britain’s industrial power and mid-century ambition – her thirst for new technologies, pride in manufacturing and passion for exciting new ways to travel by road, air and sea.

Armed with these About Britain guides, historian Tim Cole takes to the roads to find out what has changed and what has remained the same over the 70 years since they were first published. From Oban to Torquay, Caernarvon to Cambridge, he explores the visible changes to our landscape, and the more subtle social and cultural shifts that lie beneath.

In a starkly different era where travel has been transformed by the pandemic and many are journeying closer to home, About Britain is a warm and timely meditation on our changing relationship with the landscape, industry and transport. As he looks out on vineyards and apple orchards, power stations and slate mines, vast greenhouses and fulfilment centres for online goods, Cole provides an enchanting look at twentieth and early twenty-first century Britain.©2021 Tim Cole (P)2021 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Europe Great Britain Western Europe England
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Listeners also enjoyed...

The Full English cover art
The Great North Road cover art
England's Villages cover art
One Man and His Bike cover art
Attention All Shipping cover art
Walking the Great North Line cover art
The Bill Bryson BBC Radio Collection cover art
Tales from the Tillerman cover art
Hope and Glory cover art
Dear Bill Bryson cover art
Lost Britain cover art
The Nanny State Made Me cover art
(Just As Well) It's Not About The Bike cover art
The Wood That Built London cover art
Brooklyn cover art
On the Slow Train cover art

What listeners say about About Britain

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    3
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    3
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    4
  • 4 Stars
    0
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Lovely narration

Very educational and enjoyable sad to see the modernist issues but progress is progress.

Incredible the issue on salmon farming

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!