Blackburn born poet and author, Mark Ward has already confessed his love for East Lancashire and the culture and people within it in his first book, Night Bus to Monte Carlo.

His second release is just as nostalgic and sentimental but with a firm focus on collectivism.

The Lost World of Langdale and Other Stories is an eclectically compiled literary scrapbook that flicks through the landscapes and lives of people across the South Lakes and East Lancashire.

The book is absent of a narrative underpinned by identity politics that armours people in culture war debates.

Ward provides the reader with refreshingly open-minded portrayals of the country’s social and political climate, past and present, by championing the value and significance of ordinary people from all walks of life.

“I’ve always found the people who don’t make the news to be just as interesting, and often more so, than people who do.”

Ward refuses to succumb to the idea of ‘news values’ – the criteria that determines who make the headlines by speaking to these ordinary people who, unlike celebrities or politicians, don’t have large followings or amounts of power but define the spaces we inhibit.

The Lost World of Langdale and Other Stories is a mosaic of different stories, perspectives, and even recipes, that paints a paean of the UK.

The book is available to buy on Amazon.