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Private Notes
The dramatic moors and valleys of West Yorkshire were the home of, and inspiration for, the Brontes, the remarkable literary family that produced Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre. Over four days, Tony Robinson heads out from the Victorian wool capital of Bradford, and treks in a giant loop around what is now known as Bronte Country. From the birth of Charlotte, Emily, Anne and their brother Branwell in the Bradford suburb of Thornton, Tony traces their childhoods to the much-romanticised Bronte hub of Haworth. But the shocking reality of 1820s life in the mill town was far removed both from the tourist town of today, and from the fantasy world dreamed up by the Bronte children at their father's parsonage home.
Tony Robinson visits the Cairngorms National Park to discover how Queen Victoria and Prince Albert helped shape Scottish traditions and imagery, such as tartan, bagpipes and caber-tossing. Starting in Pitlochry, he traverses the Killiecrankie Pass, where the Jacobites won the Battle of Killiecrankie, and ends his trek at Balmoral and the fantasy castle Albert built as his and Victoria's Highland escape.
Tony Robinson heads to the south-west corner of Wales and one of Britain's finest coastal paths to find out why Pembrokeshire feels so English, even though it's more than 100 miles from the border. With its numerous castles and a fine cathedral, there are sure signs the Normans stamped their mark over the area. Tony's four-day walk traces the story of their conquest of the county, which he discovers was very different from the knockout victory at Hastings, involving a long, fiercely fought struggle.
For five years, the Channel Islands were occupied by the Germans, the only part of the British Isles to be so. Tony tells of the story of the Occupation; its physical impact is still very visible and the experience still remembered.
Tony Robinson takes a four-day walk through Guernsey and Jersey, finding out what life was like there for the five years of German occupation in World War II
Nowhere is fact and fiction so entwined than in the stories of King John, Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham. Yet out of this legendary time came Magna Carta, a foundations stone of modern democracy. On the 800th anniversary of the signing, Tony unravels the history from the myth.
In Sherwood Forest and the Peak District, Tony Robinson explores the story of King John, the hapless monarch who stumbled from one crisis to another.
In 1685, a rebel army landed at the pretty Dorset port of Lyme Regis and swept up through Somerset, pausing at Taunton to declare its leader, Duke of Monmouth, the rightful king. Tony walks in their footsteps and relives their spirit.
Tony Robinson hikes up from Dorset's Jurassic Coast to the Somerset Levels, in the footsteps of the dashing young Duke of Monmouth, who led a revolution against James II
