Thusly in this short series of love letters to the North of England, I've focused my writing almost entirely into my rough-edged and oddball town of Barrow-in-Furness. It seemed the perfect place to start, for it's the best example of a forgotten old industrial town that exudes homeliness, where life ticks along at a pace a million miles from London's. Its narrow terrace streets and old sandstone halls, monolithic dockyard cranes and grey beaches ooze inspiration, its culture is strong. Yet in contrast to this urban setting, there is another place, a very different place that I am proud to call home and where my heart is content. If Barrow is a father to me, the Lake District is a mother. Just a stone's throw from South Furness one will find themselves in some of the most utterly breathtaking countryside they've ever laid eyes upon, a landscape you might think only exists in paintings and poems and which inspired Shelley and Wordsworth alike. The beauty of Cumbria ...