Popular Author Explores the County of Worcestershire at University Lecture

Tuesday, 15 November 2011

A popular author will explore the County of Worcestershire during the 60th Lovatt Lecture in Geography at the University of Worcester.

Mike Parker will contemplate Worcestershire in both local and national perceptions, and how the county, with its post-industrial north and plumper, wealthier south, can be seen as something of a microcosm of England itself.

The free lecture takes place on Thursday, November 24th from 6pm in the University’s Urwin Lecture Theatre at St John’s Campus.

Mike said of his lecture: “The county of Worcestershire is not one of Britain's better known; there will never be a TV series called The Only Way is Worcestershire. Many people would struggle to place it accurately on the map, and might mumble something if pushed about sauce and porcelain, or cricket, pears and Elgar if they think really hard.”

Mike is the author of the bestselling Map Addict, described by The Daily Telegraph as an “excellent book on the pleasures of maps and navigation … a withering attack on the infantilisation of the satnav age”.

His follow-up book, The Wild Rover is a passionate celebration of our rights of way network, and an examination of its chequered history.

Mike grew up in Kidderminster but has written and presented numerous TV programmes on his adopted home territory of Wales including the popular Great Welsh Roads. He also wrote the cult book Neighbours From Hell?, a passionate polemic about the history of English attitudes to their nearest neighbours. He has also written or co-written ten guide books, including five editions of the Rough Guide to Wales, and he occasionally performs as an actor and stand-up comedian.

Each year the Institute of Science and the Environment at the University of Worcester hosts the Lovatt Lecture in Geography. This is named after George Lovatt, the first geographer to be appointed to the then college.