00 – Forward

I began writing ‘Letters from Lancaster’ soon after returning to live in Lancaster after fifty-six years away. I sent them to friends who did not know the town. I wrote them quickly, usually one a week, in the first year, to record the return of a changed person to a changed place. And I used them to begin to establish a new relationship between myself and the area. They are a mix of observation, experience, research, reminiscence, opinion and imagination. They record what a returning native was drawn to, after an adult life away, in the place of his birth.