Hello, gentle listeners, and this is a public service announcement, not an ordinary run-of-the-mill episode.

This is instead the welcome news that the annual History of England tour is now available for booking.

And in September 2025, this takes us to see God's own county, or Yorkshire, as it is otherwise known.

The dates for your diary are September the 8th to September the 17th, 2025, of course. Now look, in eight days,

we can't go everywhere and we'll focus on West Yorkshire, but it does

mean that every day is what my daughter would, I believe, describe as a banger. This is our

fourth tour, everyone, and I have to tell you that I've loved all the other three, because everyone

has always been utterly of the same mind. We've all managed to get on like a house on fire,

and the companionship and endless history chats have been as much fun as the sites themselves.

Having said all that, don't get me wrong, the sites are magnificent. On the way up to Yorkshire,

we'll pause in Derbyshire, which I can reveal to you is my favourite English county, Appraper of Nothing.

Derbyshire was the cradle of the Industrial Revolution, and we're going to go to Cromford Valley and the mills there.

The place where the factory system was born, and it's both fascinating and actually surprisingly beautiful.

We'll stay in Harrogate about half the time in Yorkshire, a very grand spa town,

and the history of spas is a great story in itself, actually, very much part of the upper

and middle class bit of the social revolution that went along with the industrial revolution.

From Hadigot, we explore the Yorkshire Dales. Now look, if you've not been to the Dales,

then you are really in for a treat. They are absolutely beautiful. Green, green river valleys,

hillsides dotted with sheep, dark, limestone, dry stone walls, snaking up the hills towards the bleak moors.

Fantastic stuff. And the villages and towns can be an absolute delight. Square, sturdy, limestone, etched into the hills and valleys.

But come on, enough of all that emotional stuff. Though, look, I went loads and loads of times when I was young,

and I absolutely love it, and I bet you will too.

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