Stuart walked in the footsteps of history
WELL-KNOWN radio DJ and television presenter, currently hosting his afternoon show, alongside Mark Radcliffe, and his own show Freak Zone on BBC Radio 6 Music, Stuart Maconie is the latest addition to this year’s Literature and Ideas Festival.
Stuart, as a journalist, has written for such diverse publications as Q Magazine, ELLE, The Times, The Guardian, Mojo and Country Walking and was an assistant editor for the NME.
He has written several best-selling and criticallyacclaimed books, including the autobiographical Cider With Roadies and The Pie at Night: In Search of the North at Play.
Stuart also wrote and presented the major BBC Radio 2 series and accompanying book The People’s Songs.
At ‘A (short) Evening with Stuart Maconie’ he will be sharing stories and insights from his recent retracing of the famous Jarrow March, as explored in his latest book Long Road from Jarrow: A Journey Through Britain Then and Now.
He visits the great cities as well as the sleepy hamlets, quiet lanes and roaring motorways.
He meets those with stories to tell and whose voices build a funny, complex and entertaining tale of Britain, then and now.
He said: “Three and half weeks. Three hundred miles.
“I saw roaring arterial highway and silent lanes, candlelit cathedrals and angry men in bad pubs.
“The Britain of 1936 was a land of beef paste sandwiches and drill halls.
“Now we are a nation of vaping and nail salons, pulled pork and salted caramel.”
In the autumn of 1936, some 200 men from the Tyneside town of Jarrow marched 300 miles to London in protest against the destruction of their towns and industries.
Precisely 80 years on, Stuart walked from north to south retracing their route.
Travelling down the country’s spine, he moved through a land that is, in some ways, very much the same as the England of the ‘30s with its political turbulence, austerity, north/south divide, food banks and football mania. Yet in other ways, it is completely unrecognisable.
He visited the great cities as well as the sleepy hamlets, meeting those with stories to tell and whose voices build a funny, complex and entertaining tale of Britain, then and now.
After discussing Long Road from Jarrow, Stuart will be pleased to answer questions on any of his books, radio or TV work.