Tim Locke writes
I’ve been involved as project manager for this new series of British guides taking a slow look at what makes an area distinctive. With Adrian Phillips and Donald Greig from Bradt’s I’ve developed a brief for the authors. Basically I wanted to free up the conventions of guidebook writing and allow authors to present something really personal and heartfelt about their own areas. The books are intended both as practical guides and also as armchair reads, and feature interviews with people, snippets of information that illuminate the character of the locale, walks, sights, public transport logistics and some selective listings. The first series was a collaborative venture with Alastair Sawday’s guides, who provided the accommodation sections.

The first three books came out in June 2010, with Guild members having a hand in each title. They are Devon and Exmoor (by Hilary Bradt, with contributions by her friend Janice Booth), Norfolk and Suffolk (by Laurence Mitchell) and North Yorkshire (for which Caroline Mills contributed two chapters; the rest was written by a non-Guild member, Mike Bagshaw).
 

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Laurence Mitchell writes

Researching and writing this almost came as a culture shock after years focused on Eastern Europe, Central Asia and my beloved ‘territories in transition’. It was something of a homecoming too, and a genuine delight to be able to take a long hard look at the area where I had spent most of my life over the past thirty years.

In actual fact, it turned out to be more of a long soft look as I revisited old stomping grounds and once-familiar territory that I had rather overlooked in recent years. Of course, the Norfolk and Suffolk coastline charmed as much as it always had, as did the silvery waterworld of the Broads, but my research also led to hitherto undiscovered corners of the region that I was far less familiar with – Breckland, the Waveney Valley, the Suffolk saltings.
 

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Caroline Mills writes

Philosophically speaking, I think I have always been in favour of Slow travel, even before I was aware of what the term meant. Regardless of how exotic they might have been, the journeys that stay most in my mind are those in which I did not attempt to cover too much ground but rather let the landscape reveal itself at a human pace. Inevitably, bicycles, local buses and my own two feet were the preferred means of transport. As the saying goes, it is better to travel hopefully than to arrive (although that might just depend on where you’re going). The important thing is to stop and look, enjoy the little things that make a place special and be open to serendipity.

My involvement with Slow North Yorkshire came late in the day with the need for someone to write two extra chapters on Nidderdale and the City of York. To say that I was working slowly, in equilibrium with the ethos of the book, is somewhat shy of the truth. I liken my time spent researching and writing the two chapters to a swimming duck – on the surface the duck, smiling happily, appears to be gliding along peacefully across the pond. Underneath, its little webbed feet are paddling frantically. I hope that the outcome reflects this, above surface, slow and serene appearance that wandering along the banks of the Nidd or listening to the Minster bells on a sun-filled day in York's Museum Gardens provides. It should match that of Mike Bagshaw's authorship in the rest of the guide.

Slow North Yorkshire is special because the county is special and, despite my frenetic research on top of that gleaned from my days living in York, the county deserves and requires visitors to slow down in order to value what it has to offer. In truth it requires a lifetime to really get to grips with – an unhurried approach. Sitting quietly and reading the guide, you can actually feel yourself slowing down and relaxing as if you're already in the county. If not, it's the next best thing to being there.
 

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