The past had
a lot of work
in it.

I’m 24, and I work in a second-hand bookshop. Old household manuals and tools are my sort of rabbit hole: the instructions make an ordinary task sound simple, until you notice just how much work somebody had to do.

That’s the bit of history I want to spend time with. The tools that solved awkward problems. The trades that took years to learn. The little arrangements that kept a household or a street going.

Timeless Britain follows those lives through England, Scotland and Wales, mostly between 1750 and 1960. Clever solutions, peculiar customs and exhausting routines. Affection for the past doesn’t mean pretending it was easy.

There’s plenty to love about old Britain without pretending the washing did itself.