A piece appeared in the Eastern Daily Press last weekend in honour of the local launch of a new book we've published by Baroness Gillian Shephard called Knapton. As the reporter put it, Knapton "has witnessed some of the fastest and most radical changes in rural Norfolk". Further reporting that "in the book Willie Puncher, [BRILLIANT name] born in 1937, says Knapton in the ’40s and ’50s had 10 farms, mostly with livestock. By last year amalgamation and contract-farming had reduced them to three – with no farm animals left". Knapton is a book of memories written by the people who have lived the drastic changes to their village and the life there, but more than that it charts - through the spectrum of one village - a social history of all of Britain.
If you're from Knapton, this books is for you, but more than that it's a book for anyone who's witnessed drastic changes in a place they call home. Baroness Shephard is doing lots of signing events for the launch of the book in and around Norfolk. If you'd like to get an idea of what life was like in this small Norfolk village and meet her in person, here's a low-down of where you can find her:
Saturday 6 August
10am-12pm
Ceres Bookshop, Swaffham
Tuesday 16 August
11.30am-1.30pm
Bertram A. Watts Bookshop, Sheringham
Tuesday 16 August
from 2.30pm
Mundesley Library, Mundesley
Saturday 20 August
11am-1pm
Holt Bookshop, Holt
Knapton is available now, priced £14.99