The team
Ruth Harrison
Angela Hicken
Madelaine - the book thief
Penny
Rose Ratcliffe
Rachel the editor
Jane the Archivist
Cordelia Gray
Friday Next
Jacky Percival
Other teams
Growing up in Portsmouth Find!
Is growing up in Portsmouth more frustrating than growing up anywhere else? It certainly seems to be for 13-year-old Jake as he struggles to make sense of the urban domesticity of 1980s Portsmouth. Read more in 'Glasshopper' (Myriad Press 2009), a debut novel by Isabel Ashdown who won the Mail on Sunday Novel Competition with an extract from this troubling and funny book. The judges, including Fay Weldon, wrote "Magnificent ... made every word work and left the reader anxious to read on" .29 September 2009 from Friday Next
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Finds
- A Daughter of Winchester
- And here is one we missed
- And, finally, one for Hallowe'en
- How did we miss this one?
- John Wyndham's Hampshire connection
- Reading the countryside
- New Milton's new Milton
- Heywood Sumner in South Gorley
- PG Wodehouse in Emsworth
- Walking In My Sleep
- Nicola Slade's Victorian Mysteries
- England's Lost Eden
- June Tate
- Bullington
- Speed The Plough: A Country Song
- A Hampshire scarecrow: Worzel Gummidge
- Queens Arms
- Haslar Hospital Memories
- Magical writing for children
- Inspired by the Tichborne Claimant
- Gypsy Girl Trilogy
- Rev. Gilbert White (1720-1793) and The Natural History of Selborne
- Coffee with Date and Walnut Loaf
- The Play Room
- Kipling's dislikes
- Deadman's Plack
- Netley Abbey Ruins
- Portsea Sagas
- Lilian Harry's Family Connections
- Crossing the Bar
- John Betjeman and Bevis Hillier
- Growing up in Portsmouth
- More Edward Thomas
- Two blokes and a shed
- In the shadow of the Cathedral
- Hampshire Days
- Mr Hardy Writes a Poem
- "Steep" is apt
- Thackeray in Fareham
- Forgotten Favourite?
- Daniel Clay's 'Broken'
- Pell and Tess
- Edward Thomas and Froxfield
- Betjeman explores hidden corners of Hampshire
- Rebecca Smith
- Right of Access
- Hampshire songs, poems, and ditties
- In this house
- Words & Walks
- England, Their England
- An Ode to a Road
- The story of a house
- Crime Connections to the City
- John Keat's Ode to Autumn
- William Lisle Bowles, poet
- Future Princes of Winchester
- Spike Island by Philip Hoare
- The marriage of souls
- Rural Rides: William Cobbett
- Elinor Brent-Dyer remembered
- Dornford Yates' Hampshire connection
- The Marlows, their maker and stealing a corner of Dorset
- Saint Cross: England's Oldest Almshouse
- Winchester the whole day through
- HOW TO BE A BETTER PERSON
- Otterbourne's Enid Blyton? Charlotte M. Yonge (1823-1901)
- Odo's Hanging is missing
- The Warden
- Charles Kingsley's Letters
- Owslebury Bottom
- See it My Way
- Introduction to Melesina Trench
- Some Hampshire road signs read Jane Austen Country
- Flora Thompson: published poet
Recent posts
- Postscrpt to a previous find
- The uses of a detective
- Reading Detectives film
- Virginia Smith remembered
- Mary Sumner
- A272: An Ode to a Road (by Andy)
- The hunt continues
- Winchester MP Mark Oaten to publish book
- Chalet School
- Bags of Books and Enthusiasm
- Chalet School author
- Poetry in the pub
- Wealth of words in Winchester
- Hampshire Gets Going
Help the team
Have you got something to contribute? You can contact us to report your clues and you can comment on our blog posts. It doesn't matter where in the world you are!

Dear Reading Detectives
Having just released my debut novel, Glasshopper, I was delighted to receive a google alert which took me to your website.
You might like to know that I'll be signing books and chatting to readers in the Portsmouth branch of Waterstone's at midday on Saturday 31st October.
I'll also be in the Newport branch, Isle of Wight, this Tuesday (13th), at 6.30pm to talk about my novel, which features the island as one of its locations.
I'd love to meet any interested readers. Many thanks for including Glasshopper on your site.
All the best,
Isabel Ashdown