As several readers may know, my day job is looking after Chedworth Roman Villa in the Cotswolds. Chedworth sits comfortably within a region that supported some of the most prosperous rural estates in Britannia. Yet the world that sustained and shaped the villa extended far beyond the Coln valley.
BOOK REVIEWS
Stephen Coan’s The Buried Man can only be described as magisterial. It is the culmination of decades of patient, methodical, and deeply informed scholarship. Coan has lived with, traced, and tracked H. Rider Haggard for much of his adult life, and this monumental volume represents the distillation of that long engagement. It is unlikely to be surpassed for a very long time.
BLUE PLAQUES
Jazz legend Jonas Gwangwa, born 1937 in Orlando East, received his first trombone from Father Huddleston in 1954. He led the Amandla Cultural Ensemble of the ANC travelling worldwide for 10 years. Gwangwa was a 1988 two-time Oscar Nominee for the film "Cry Freedom" starring Denzel Washington.