A landscape beloved by millions, it’s renowned for the tranquillity and solace it provides – however, this tranquillity is an illusion. Britain’s moorlands have, in less than a decade, moved from a position of benign consensus to the epicentre of the bitterest conflict within UK conservation.  

This insightful book sets out to examine and expose the hidden issues surrounding UK moorland conservation, giving a voice to the many people who work and live there and who feel that what they have to say is often ignored, if it’s even heard at all.  

The fate of our uplands is in our hands, and it is important that an alternative narrative, from the perspective of the practitioners who have cared for these places for generations, are considered.

It may be that those with power chose to ignore these facts and sweep them away, but at least now they cannot say they didn’t know.

Beginning his career at the Royal Albert Hall, his introduction to the entertainment industry commenced under the guidance of the late Victor Hochhauser – Britain’s foremost promoter of Russian ballet and classical music.

Passionate and enigmatic, this memoir delves right into the heart of 1960s performing arts, with Gubbay absorbingly recounting both the stress and excitement that came with marshalling three coach loads of Russian performers around the country at a time of conflicting traditions, theatrical decline, amid Soviet tensions – and this was only the beginning?

Setting up on his own, he started with a handful of performers touring to modest venues around the country, building a brand and a style which seemed very much in tune with the times.  

Later, working alongside some of the most prestigious classical and popular artists of our time – from Yehudi Menuhin, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Luciano Pavarotti and the English National Ballet to Ray Charles,  Miles Davis and Andrew Lloyd-Webber – Gubbay has witnessed and played a hand in promoting and producing some of the most iconic performances of opera, ballet and classical music ever staged in some of the largest music venues in Britain, the Royal Festival Hall, Symphony Hall Birmingham – and not least of all the Royal Albert Hall. He was in at the start of the Barbican in the City of London and provides a keen insight into the early years there.  

Lowering the Tone  is rich with stories of showbusiness and the behind-the scenes business of the great musical venues, with appearances from a wealth of household and international names.

This is the story of achievement, imagination and a desire to bring happiness and entertainment to generations of music lovers.

When The Decline of an English Village was first published in 1974, its appearance was greeted with immediate critical acclaim. As a young writer, born into declining village life, Robin Page’s message simultaneously struck a chord and sounded a warning.

Now, after forty-five years, it reappears with a new and updated introduction, in which political activist Robin Page exposes greed, political ineptitude, and social and environmental indifference as the driving forces behind the deterioration of village life and the communities around it.

Robin Page transports readers back to a time when villages were founded on the value of community, and when people still worked the land in the traditional sense. He reflects and ruminates on his own experiences of rural life, raising sensitive topics, such as the intensification of farming, over-population, and environmental degradation in some of England’s most beloved places. Robin shares his concern for the alarming loss of wildlife in England, and offers his own perspective on what he perceives to be the most pressing issues. His passion for English tradition, reflected through his involvement with the Countryside Restoration Trust, radiates from within the pages of this book, along with his enthusiasm for preserving the countryside and its wildlife.

Throughout his life, Robin has observed dramatic changes in the way people live their lives. It’s in this book that he reiterates the tragedy behind a countryside increasingly misused and abused in the name of urbanisation and industrialisation.