By Dr Oliver Tearle ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ is one of the best-loved nursery rhymes in all of English literature, but its origins are somewhat different from most beloved children’s rhymes. What does this little rhyme mean? And where did it come from? First, here’s a minder of the […]
This week, the paperback edition of our literary travelogue, Britain by the Book, was published by John Murray. In honour, here is a shortened version of one of the entries from the book… The village of Yealmpton (pronounced ‘Yampton’) is a few miles east of Plymouth. Market Street boasts a […]
By Dr Oliver Tearle ‘Old King Cole’ is familiar to us from the famous children’s rhyme, but just who was he? Although the song of ‘Old King Cole’ is well-known, the man named Old King Cole, with his fiddlers three, remains shrouded in mystery. Before we examine this issue a […]