LIVING PRAYER & ART IN ITS HIGHEST FORM
A glimpse of what a Catholic parish was like in the 1950s: The Parish of Blessed John Henry Newman. All the rituals of the Old Rite – or Extraordinary Rite – that were in every parish in the 1950s are to be witnessed in the church of the Parish of Blessed John Henry Newman. The Mass in the Old Rite is living prayer and living art in its highest form.

ENID BLYTON
During her writing career Enid Blyton wrote more than 600 books. Most children in the 1950s would have read one or more of them. I was mad on the Famous Five.  The Enid Blyton Society website is chock-full of information about this children’s author and her books, a writer who has scarcely her equal in output and imagination for children. I have reread the Famous Five series in preparation for my childhood memoir. Enjoyed them all over again. They took me back into the another era – which was the intention.

DUNCAN MCLAREN shares a liking for two of my favourite writers:  Enid Blyton and Evelyn Waugh. He has several terrific websites/pages devoted to aspects of these writers and their work. His writing is interesting, quirky and just a little eccentric – in true British style. I highly recommend the following:

Duncan McLaren – Putting the I in biography

ENID BLYTON
Blyton Forever

Bourne End Forever
This is a marvellous section of Duncan’s website. He connects the action and locations of the Mystery/Find-Outer series titles to Bourne End where Enid Blyton lived.  A stunning achievement.

EVELYN WAUGH
EVELYN! Rhapsody for an Obsessive Love

For lovers of Vile Bodies – the background to rushing Runcible. Wonderful.
A Day at the Races

Acclaimed biographer Paula Byrne has written bestselling biographies of Jane Austen and Evelyn Waugh, two of my favourite novelists. See her website here.