Lincolnshire is often overlooked as a short break destination. But many of its treasures will be strangely familiar to West Midlanders thanks to two of Hollywood’s biggest stars. The county welcomed Tom Hanks when the breathtaking Lincoln Cathedral doubled as Westminster Abbey for the 2006 blockbuster movie The Da Vinci Code. And Keira Knightley shot…

It was one of the most embarrassing moments of my life. Cars were queuing up either side of the Shirley drawbridge over the Stratford-upon-Avon Canal and the agitated motorists were beeping their horns. The traffic barriers were steadfastly refusing to open to let them pass and I was stood at the controls – helpless and…

Back in the early 1980s there were three things the average English family would do together almost religiously on a Sunday. There was church in the morning, a traditional roast dinner in the afternoon and then in the evening up to 24 million of us would gather round the TV to watch To The Manor…

The legendary Tom Jones once sang about the green green grass of home. In  truth, the South Wales valleys where he was born and raised were not green at  all when the song went to No.1 in 1966. They had been scarred by an intensive mining and heavy engineering industry which by then was in…