All Points North

For the author, the North is not Manchester or the Lake District but that area of Yorkshire where the M1 intersects with the M62 - the country of Jarvis Cocker, Peter Sutcliffe, Geoffrey Boycott and Bernard Ingham. Armitage reports on the place and its people.

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In the eyes of Simon Armitage the North is not Manchester or Newcastle or the Lake District but that area of West Yorkshire where the M1 intersects the M62: the country of Jarvis Cocker and Peter Sutcliffe, Geoffrey Boycott and Bernard Ingham. In a series of incredibly funny and perceptive pieces that are above all reminiscent of Alan Bennett, he conveys the spirit of the place through wonderful narratives: a day-out in Bridlington with the local dramatic society, tyre-trading on the local farms, a Saturday-night out in Leeds and so on.