Winterstoke

'It had always struck me that, despite its overwhelming importance in the story of mankind, far too little attention had been paid to the Industrial Revolution in literature and art . . . I conceived the idea of concentrating a number of actual historical happenings in the English Midlands upon one imaginary industrial town . . . from the days of the first monastic mill on the river to the present day when an atomic research establishment on the outskirts of a huge blackened town struck a new apocalyptic note . . . I called my imaginary town Winterstoke.' Tom Rolt, writing in 1972 L. T. C. ('Tom') Rolt (1919-74) was a famed pioneer in the preservation of Britain's canal networks and railways, a biographer of the great civil engineers, and a forerunner of our current green movement. Winterstoke (1952), arguably his most visionary work, is reissued here with a new introduction featuring his widow Sonia and son Tim.