Tom Fort – författare

What has been the dish of kings, the subject of myths and the traveller of epic and mysterious journeys? The eel.Beginning life in the Sargasso Sea, the eel travels across the ocean, lives for twenty or so years, and then is driven by some instinct back across the ocean to spawn and die. And the next generation starts the story again. No one knows why the eels return, or how the orphaned elvers learn their way back. One man discovered, after many adventures, the breeding ground of all eels – and he is the hero of this book.Eels were being caught and consumed 5000 years before the birth of Christ – Aristotle and Pliny wrote about them; Romans regarded them as a peerless delicacy; Egyptians accorded them semi-sacred status; English kings died of overeating them. There are many strange practices among eel fishers all over the world, and many great fortunes based upon the eel harvest.The Book of Eels, a combination of social comment, biography and natural history, is also a fascinating and witty account of Tom Fort’s obsession with the eel, his journeying to discover the eel in all its habitats, and the people he meets in his pursuit.

Grass and its organisation into lawns is a particularly English obsession.If an Englishman’s house is his castle, then his lawn is most certainly his estate. Occupying a place in the national psyche comparable to that of afternoon tea, the English concept of the ideal lawn has evolved and altered alomost beyond regognition since its first mention in the time of Henry III. Now Tom Fort traces its history, through famous lawns, to the present day.The English are universally acknowledged to be the lawn creators, coming up with most of the games played on grass, as well as the original grass-cutting machines. The lawn has aroused the wonder of the rest of the civilised world, and the Americans have fused to their conception of suburban bliss the ideal of the impeccably manicured lawn.This social history of grass is further enlivened by an introduction to the creator of the first lawnmower, Edwin Budding, by discussions with contemporary lawnsmen, and by witnessing the author’s own attempt to create his perfect lawn.

A Times and Sunday Times Book of the Year Peer into the secret, silent world of the freshwater fish and explore evolution of the art and industry of fishing in Britain's rivers and streams. From cunning Neolithic traps, intricate Roman nets and quarrellous Victorian societies to the evolution of angling and eventual gentrification of river access, this history spans thousands of years and ends with a poignant call to protect the underwater world from the horrors of industrial fishing and farming.Meanwhile, another thread of the narrative weaves in the lives of the fishes themselves: the incredible struggles of the Atlantic salmon and secretive eel; the pike, a lean and camouflaged predator; the carp, huge and stately, begetter of obsessions; the exquisite spotted brown trout and its silver cousin, the grayling.Lives built on and around fishing have largely faded from Britain, but fishermen and conservationists are working tirelessly to prevent the same fate befalling the fishes.

'Tom Fort has a unique knack of finding new ways to reflect Britain back to ourselves and Lido Land may be his best book yet!' Charlie Connelly, author of The Shipping NewsPeople are currently flocking back to Britain’s lidos in their thousands. But this isn’t the first time they’ve made a splash.From the author of The A303: Highway to the Sun comes a deep dive into the historical and cultural significance of the British lido that will make you fall in love with outdoor swimming.Tom Fort takes us on a fun-packed journey around the UK’s lidos past and present, proving that lidos can tell us more about social trends, progress and political ideology than you might think. Along the way he takes us to the only surviving Lido in Wales, built in 1927 to help miners wash off their daily dirt, to the Portobello Pool in Edinburgh where Sean Connery was once a lifeguard, and around the iconic seaside towns of Blackpool and Weston-super-Mare where the loosening of Victorian moral standards could be measured by the shrinking of swimming costumes. Along the way, we meet the beauty queens competing for the Miss New Brighton crown at the Merseyside lido in 1966, a mayor who finished Guildford lido’s opening ceremony by stripping off his robes and gold chain and diving headfirst into the water, and we spend time with the colourful characters involved in designing, creating and keeping lidos afloat through the years.His journey shows us, time and time again, the personal significance of the lidos’ communal spaces – the unmistakable cold of the water rising above your shoulders, the sounds and smells of poolside sunbathing, the sun-baked tiles underfoot and the warm towel after a freezing dip. Fort, with his characteristic wryness and nostalgia, gathers memories and observations from the swimmers he meets along the way, interspersing these with historical fragments and moments from his own history. He laments the lidos we have lost, celebrates those saved by persistent community organising, and takes a frank look into their future.

The English Channel is the busiest waterway in the world. Ferries steam back and forth, trains thunder through the tunnel. The narrow sea has been crucial to our development and prosperity. It helps define our notion of Englishness, as an island people, a nation of seafarers. It is also our nearest, dearest playground where people have sought sun, sin and bracing breezes. Tom Fort takes us on a fascinating, discursive journey from east to west, to find out what this stretch of water means to us and what is so special about the English seaside, that edge between land and seawater. He dips his toe into Sandgate's waters, takes the air in Hastings and Bexhill, chews whelks in Brighton, builds a sandcastle in Sandbanks, sunbathes in sunny Sidmouth, catches prawns off the slipway at Salcombe and hunts a shark off Looe. Stories of smugglers and shipwreck robbers, of beachcombers and samphire gatherers, gold diggers and fossil hunters abound.

‘An entertaining book, written with Fort’s characteristic conversational style… A real pleasure to read’ – BBC Countryfile‘A wide-ranging, intelligent and bracingly enjoyable book’ – The Literary Review‘Meticulously researched and seasoned with wry humour, this is a perceptive and richly rewarding read’ – Mail on Sunday We have lived in villages a long time. The village was the first model for communal living. Towns came much later, then cities. Later still came suburbs, neighbourhoods, townships, communes, kibbutzes. But the village has endured. Across England, modernity creeps up to the boundaries of many, breaking the connection the village has with the land. With others, they can be as quiet as the graveyard as their housing is bought up by city ‘weekenders’, or commuters.The ideal chocolate box image many holidaying to our Sceptred Isle have in their minds eye may be true in some cases, but across the country the heartbeat of the real English village is still beating strongly – if you can find it. To this mission our intrepid historian and travel writer Tom Fort willingly gets on his trusty bicycle and covers the length and breadth of England to discover the essence of village life. His journeys will travel over six thousand years of communal existence for the peoples that eventually became the English. Littered between the historical analysis, are personal memories from Tom of the village life he remembers and enjoys today in rural Oxfordshire.

'A nostalgic experience, informative, humorous, charming, but pervaded by the bitter-sweet scent of regret' Daily Mail'Fort has an eye for the quirky, the absurd, the pompous and a style that, like the road, is always on the move' Sunday Telegraph'A lovely book...At last someone has celebrated the romance of the British road' GuardianThe A303 is more than a road. It is a story. One of the essential routes of English motoring and the road of choice to the West Country for thousands of holidaymakers, the A303 recalls a time when the journey was an adventure and not simply about getting there.In this fully revised and updated edition, Tom Fort gives voice to the stories this road has to tell, from the bluestones of Stonehenge, Roman roads and drovers paths to turnpike tollhouses, mad vicars, wicked Earls and solstice seekers, the history, geography and culture of this road tells a story of an English way of life.

'A hymn to hardware, charming, lyrical' - The Sunday Times, BOOK OF THE WEEK'A paean to DIY' - The Times'Strung together very agreeably, with dry wit and, dare I say it, considerable polish' - Country LifeIn 2018 Tom Fort's daughter-in-law took over a century-old hardware shop. The family dreamed of developing the shop into one that would become the centre of village life; that much did come true, but not in the way they had expected.Interweaving the evolution of the shop, its previous owners, the customers it serves and the items it sells, Rivets, Trivets & Galvanised Buckets offers a delightful study of community and shines a light on the eccentricities of ordinary people. Alongside, it presents a fascinating history of technological development; from who thought of screwdrivers to where the spirit level came from, who devised the process of galvanisation and what genius worked out that a suction pad on the end of a piece of wood could unblock sinks.As Tom recounts: 'A little girl came with her father into Heath and Watkins, looked around for a while and said "Daddy, this is the shop of EVERYTHING"'. This is the story of how that happened.

Rivets, Trivets and Galvanised Buckets is The Repair Shop meets The Diary of a Bookseller all conveyed in Tom Fort's signature easy-going writing style.