Where is England, anyhow? A vast cathedral of writers and musicians have tried to locate the elusive heart of a country caught in a perpetual tug of war between its grandiloquent past and uncertain future. Among the most recent is Stuart Maconie, the BBC broadcaster and writer. When he answers his phone, Maconie is, like all true Englishmen, waiting on the platform of a train station. It’s morning time and he’s in bright form, having spent a lively evening in Newcastle at a public gathering for The Full English, his engaging new travelogue, in which he retraces the reflective journey that JB Priestley took in 1933 for his book English Journey. While at St John Rigby College, Maconie formed a band named (after several iterations) Les Flirts, [1] featuring Maconie on guitar/vocals, Nigel Power on bass and Jem Bretherton on drums. [1] [7] Career [ edit ] Maconie, Stuart (31 July 2017). "I'm a Marxist – we are misunderstood on both the left and right". New Statesman . Retrieved 22 September 2017. Brexit Britain: Boris Johnson in Middlesbrough during his 2019 general-election campaign. Photograph: Frank Augstein/Pool/Getty

Stuart Maconie | PBJ Management Stuart Maconie | PBJ Management

The Full English: a man sits on a doorstep in Boston, in northeast England; the town registered Britain's strongest support for Brexit in the 2016 referendum. Photograph: Lindsey Parnaby/AFP via Getty If there is a neat summary to what he discovered in following Priestley’s ghost, it is that England’s cities are thriving while its towns are ailing. “There are a lot of English people who know Marbella better than the Potteries,” he points out. He would urge people to find the England beyond the blazing cities and main arteries. It is the towns that seem to have fallen into the time slips that Priestley dramatised in his plays. Maconie conjures up the contemporary version of that beauty through vivid snapshots of the cities and towns as he finds them. Chipping Campden, the Cotswolds village where Graham Greene lived, is “more likely to offer an antiquarian volume, an artisanal biscuit or an understated lithograph. Or, now, its designer shops and delicatessens crammed with cave-aged cheese, sourdough and intensely-scented Ethiopian coffee”. Maconie, Stuart (2015). The Pie at Night: In Search of the North at Play. London: Ebury Press. ISBN 978-0091933814.a b c d e f g h i j k Maconie, Stuart (2005). Cider with Roadies. London: Ebury Press. ISBN 978-0-09-189745-1. OCLC 890396204. Living on Campus: Accommodation: Graduates Court". Edge Hill University. 2014 . Retrieved 28 November 2014. He was a music reporter for Mark Goodier's Evening Session on BBC Radio 1, alongside Andrew Collins. Also on Radio 1, from 1995 to 1997, Maconie joined forces with Collins presenting a music review called Collins and Maconie's Hit Parade, which originally went out on Monday nights from 9 pm to 10 pm and then on Sunday afternoons from 3 pm to 4 pm. In addition to this, in October 1996, Maconie took over a weekly album show on Radio 1 on Sunday nights, until late 1997. Diane Abbott made ‘terrible mistake’ by saying Irish people did not suffer racism, says Labour grandee ] He makes his way to the Bridge Tavern – Maconie has wisely decided that a town’s boozer is the best way to detect its pulse – where a local man having a smoke outside nods towards the door and greets the stranger. “Looking for t’scores, lad? Go inside. You don’t have to buy owt. They won’t mind.”

The Full English: A Sunday Times bestseller: Maconie, Stuart The Full English: A Sunday Times bestseller: Maconie, Stuart

a b Maconie, Stuart (2007). Pies and Prejudice: In Search of the North. London: Ebury Press. ISBN 978-0-09-191022-8. Published in 1933, author J B Priestley’s book, English Journey, charted his journey across a changing England, a country that he loved and yet did not understand. a b "Stuart Maconie". Wigan Leisure & Culture Trust. 2012. Archived from the original on 10 December 2008.And the 'thing' turned out to be his new book, The Full English, which sees him follow in the footsteps of JB Priestley's classic travelogue, English Journey, to 'explore our national identity and how it has evolved over the last century'. Ninety years later, broadcaster and author Stuart Maconie has made the same journey through England using Priestley’s itinerary as a guide. The Full English is an insightful and entertaining book that interrogates the state of England today, a ‘sustained lovers’ quarrel’ with a country that is at once home and yet – at times – unrecognisable. Maconie, Stuart (2023). The Full English: A Journey in Search of a Country and its People. Harper Collins. ISBN 978-0008498269.

The Full English by Stuart Maconie audiobook review — an

Stuart loves a quiz, and is a Mastermind Champion, scoring their highest celebrity score answering questions on Modern British Poetry from 1900. He's on the North of England team on Radio 4's Brain of Britain, hosts new Radio 4 quiz My Generation and has triumphed in Pointless Celebrities on two occasions. Maconie, Stuart (2017). Long Road from Jarrow: A journey through Britain then and now. London: Ebury Press. ISBN 978-1785036316. Maconie, Stuart (2009). Short Stories for Short Breaks. Warrington: North West Regional Development Agency. Off the Shelf Festival of Words is one of the North's largest literary festivals. Every October we bring the biggest names in local, regional, and international literary talent, media and the arts to Sheffield. Maconie’s arrival is one of the most memorable passages in the book. “On the tram, or Metrolink more formally, you come into Radcliffe over the dark, swirling Irwell and rows of terraced houses. It’s a Saturday dusk, always an evocative time, redolent of the theme from Sports Report and Doctor Who. The cobbled ginnels fan away full of scattered wheelie bins and pizza boxes and the little shops turn off their lights.”Maconie was born in Whiston. [6] He was raised in Prescot, Merseyside. He was educated at St John Rigby College, Orrell and Edge Hill College (now Edge Hill University, Ormskirk.) [1] Maconie (right) with bassist Nigel Power louderthanwar (2 September 2011). "How John Robb made up the word 'Britpop'!". Louder Than War . Retrieved 8 October 2023.