Close by

Emerging from Winchester Cathedral for a quick dash through the Close before we were due to meet friends, I spotted this sign, but there was no time to follow the arrow and see what it was all about. Frustration!



It made me think, however, that I ought to have chosen my Hampshire reading matter with more thought of where I was going and instead of taking a book about music and an American novel, I should have had something of local interest or connections, and there are plenty to choose from.

In anticipation of making a return trip before long, I've consulted The Oxford Illustrated Literary Guide to Great Britain and Ireland and my very own Hampshireman, Mr. C., to find a few literary associations for the county.

Jane Austen is at the top of the list, of course, and then in no particular order are Dickens (Portsea), Gilbert White (Selborne), Edward Thomas (Steep), Patrick O'Brien's famous Captain Jack Aubrey (Master and Commander, etc.) lived in the county, Arthur Conan Doyle practised medicine in Southsea and set The White Company� in Hampshire, and then, as far as I can gather though it is the subject of debate, Trollope's The Warden� is based on St. Cross in Winchester. The walk we took, pictured here, follows in Keats' footsteps, and earlier we skirted Romsey, home - in its Kingsmarkham guise - to Ruth Rendell's Inspector Wexford (Not in the Flesh etc.).