William Cook | The Spectator columnists & writers

‘Why not be a teacher?’ asks Thomas More in Robert Bolt’s great play A Man for All Seasons. ‘You’d be a fine teacher, perhaps a great one.’ ‘If I was, who would know it?’ says Richard Rich, the young man who betrays him. ‘You, your pupils, your friends — God,’ says More. ‘Not a bad public, that.’ I’ve been thinking about those lines a lot since the finest teacher I ever knew, Audrey Judge, died. Audrey was 93. The last time I saw her was before Covid. She died of cancer during lockdown. She taught art at Haberdashers’ Aske’s in New Cross — formerly a state grammar school, now a state academy. She could have been a great artist. Instead she became a great teacher. I knew her for half a century. She changed a lot of lives.

Forget France – why Switzerland is the ideal summer getaway

Europe is opening up again, and it feels great to be back in Switzerland, my favourite holiday destination. Most Britons think of it purely as a place for winter sports, but midsummer here is glorious. I’ve come here virtually every year for the last 20 years, and although it’s gorgeous in winter I like it even more in summertime. The wooded hills and lush green valleys are full of hikers and mountain bikers, but it’s easy to escape the crowds. Even in the busiest places, solitude is only a short walk away. Switzerland has some of the most spectacular landscapes in the world, and the summers here are hot and sunny. The lakes are warm enough to swim in, yet the air remains fresh and cool. So why don’t more Brits come here in summer? After all, it was the British who virtually invented the Swiss tourist trade.

Watts gallery: weekend outings don’t come better than this

Here in a quiet corner of leafy Surrey, a polite revolution is taking place: a public gallery is daring to display the most unfashionable sort of art you can imagine. Here you’ll find no pickled sharks, no unmade beds, only Victorian and Edwardian figurative painting. Welcome to Watts Gallery, one of the most beautiful galleries in Britain, and, in its own unassuming way, one of the most radical venues in the country. Hidden in a wooded glade near the quaint village of Compton, Watts Gallery has all the ingredients for a perfect Sunday afternoon outing. You can poke around the posh gift shop, or pig out in the teashop (their Welsh Rarebit is delicious) or simply sit outside in the sunshine and watch the world go by.

How a Somerset farm became a hub for modern art

I’m standing in a farmyard in Somerset, drinking in the clear country air, soaking up the summer sunshine and marvelling at the lovely view. However this view is rather different from the sort of thing you tend to see on most farms. I’m here to see some modern art, stuff my face and enjoy a stroll round the stunning gardens. Welcome to Durslade Farm, the grooviest art gallery in the West Country, and one of my favourite days out. Durslade is the brainchild of Swiss couple Iwan and Manuela Wirth. Together with Manuela’s mother, leading art collector Ursula Hauser, they run one of the world’s hippest galleries, Hauser & Wirth. Hauser & Wirth have premises all around the world, in swanky locations like Monaco, St Moritz, Zurich, Hong Kong, New York and LA.

Why England’s success is no accident

Tonight, Gareth Southgate’s England team have the opportunity to do something the Three Lions haven’t done for 55 years - reach the final of a major football tournament - and the most thrilling thing for England fans is the number of young players coming through. This isn’t just a team for this year, or the World Cup in Qatar next year, or even the next Euros in three years time. Many of these players are young enough to play for England for ten years to come. England’s starting line-up against Ukraine only featured one player over 30, and three players in their early twenties (Jadon Sancho, 21, and Declan Rice and Mason Mount, both 22). Of the second half substitutes, Marcus Rashford, - already an England veteran, with 45 caps and an MBE to boot - is still only 23, while Jude Bellingham, incredibly, has only just turned 18.

A non-clubber’s guide to Ibiza

When my wife suggested a holiday in Ibiza, I thought she must be bonkers. I’d always hated clubbing, and now we had a baby and a toddler in tow. Shows how much I know. We went, we had a great time and the only clubbers we encountered were in the kids’ club at our hotel. That was 17 years ago, I’ve been back several times since then, and now the Balearics are on the green list we can’t wait to return. Our children are almost grown up now, far too cool to tag along, but it’ll be an ideal break for the two of us. I bet you’d love it too. If you’re looking for nightlife, you’re definitely reading the wrong article - but if you fancy something more leisurely, with a bit of culture thrown in, Ibiza’s capital, Vila d’Eivissa is ideal.

Seven walks inspired by artists

As we all discovered during lockdown, going for a walk is one of the best things you can do to keep your mind and body in good working order, and for me it’s even better if there’s some artistic or literary interest en route. Some of my favourite outings over these last few years have been spent following in the footsteps of artists and writers, and now Britain is opening up again it’s the ideal time to get back on the cultural trail. Here are a few of my favourite arty walks. I’d love to hear about some of yours.Simon Armitage, The PenninesHigh force waterfall on the river tees, on the route of the Pennine Way Back in 2010, those clever, creative folk at Ilkley Literature Festival had the bright idea of asking Simon Armitage to write some poems for a poetry trail between his hometown, Marsden, and Ilkley.

Secret sea air: where to beat the crowds this summer

With foreign travel still a tricky prospect, it looks like being a bumper summer for the British seaside. And yet that means the most popular places are bound to get very busy indeed. To avoid the queues and traffic jams, I’ll be revisiting some of Britain’s less familiar seaside towns. Of course, these places are very familiar to folk who are lucky enough to live nearby, but they don’t attract the bumper crowds you get in big resorts like Blackpool or Skegness. Nor are they terribly fashionable, like Padstow or St Ives. Some of them are a bit offbeat, but they’re all places where I’ve had great days out. You’re bound to have your own favourites, but if you fancy trying somewhere new this summer, here’s my personal top ten.

Britain’s best sculpture parks

‘It would be very nice just to put sculpture on hillsides or in small valleys - for everyone to enjoy,’ said the great British sculptress Barbara Hepworth. When she died, in 1975, her vision was just a pipe dream. Despite a fine sculptural tradition and countless acres of glorious parkland, there were no dedicated sculpture parks in Britain, just a few statues in the grounds of stately homes. Half a century later, what a lot has changed! Today Britain has loads of super sculpture parks, there’s bound to be one not far from you, and while visits to indoor galleries remain restricted, now is the ideal time to go. Seeing sculpture in a sculpture park is completely different to seeing it in a gallery. Personally, I far prefer it.

The joy of ancient woodland

What’s the thing that’s kept you going during these interminable lockdowns? For me, it’s been walking in my local forest, Ruislip Woods. Ruislip may be the acme of suburbia, a maze of bungalows and crazy paving - but Ruislip Woods is only a short walk away, and it’s vast. As I’m sure you’ve discovered yourself these last few months, there’s nothing quite like a walk in the woods to alleviate the lockdown blues. It feels great to go somewhere entirely unaffected by Coronavirus, a place where this pesky pandemic seems utterly inconsequential. A forest is a precious place in any part of the country, but to me Ruislip Woods feels particularly special because it’s managed to survive despite being entirely within London.

Britain’s iconic seaside towns

Finally, at long last, it seems we can start thinking about summer holidays - maybe even a short Easter break, if the Covid numbers keep coming down. However booking anything overseas still looks like a tricky prospect, so this year I’ll be renewing my acquaintance with the Great British Seaside. Like a lot of people who grew up before budget flights made foreign travel affordable, I didn’t go abroad until I was 18. And so, during my cash-strapped childhood, I got to know the British seaside pretty well. I didn’t spend much time there in my twenties, but once I had children of my own I began to make up for lost time. Taking my kids to these seaside resorts made me remember what fun I’d had there when I was a child.

In praise of Britain’s unsung cathedrals

When a kindly vicar helped me get my life back on track, 20 years ago, I vowed to light a candle in every cathedral in the British Isles. Sadly, I don’t have the time or money to do them all in one go, but I’ve been ticking them off one by one and I’ve been to 44 so far. So long as I step up the pace a bit, I still hope I can get along to all of them before I cash in my chips. How many cathedrals are there in the British Isles? Well, that depends on how you count them. There are 42 Anglican cathedrals in England, six in Wales, and one on the Isle of Man. The Church of Ireland is also Anglican, with 30 cathedrals, on both sides of the border. Scotland has eight Episcopalian cathedrals, and nine high kirks, including St Mungo’s in Glasgow and St Giles’ in Edinburgh – still cathedrals in all but name.

Why Tenerife is your best bet for last-minute winter sun

Hurrah! At last the UK government has lifted quarantine restrictions for the Canary Islands, meaning British visitors no longer have to spend a fortnight in isolation when they get back to Blighty. Spanish authorities simply require you to take a rapid-result Covid test upon arrival. For sun-starved Britons, this is great news. Warm and sunny all year round, barely four hours away by plane, with all the mod cons of mainland Spain, the Islas Canarias are the ideal winter sunshine destination. I’ve been half a dozen times and each trip has been a blast. So which island should you head for? Well, Lanzarote and Fuerteventura are both dramatic, but the place I like best, and keep returning to, is Tenerife. No surprises there – the largest and most populous island in the archipelago, it’s always been a firm favourite with British tourists – but most Brits head for the southern shore, and the brash modern beach resorts of Los Cristianos and Playa de las Américas.

The Vienna attack is a bitter blow for Sebastian Kurz

With Austria’s latest Covid lockdown due to begin at midnight, Viennese citizens were enjoying a final night of freedom. And then the shooting started. The temperature was warm for this time of year, and people were sitting at pavement tables outside the bars and cafes, enjoying the balmy weather and obeying the coronavirus guidelines. What followed was what the Austrian Chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, called a ‘repulsive terror attack.’ So far, four civilians are reported dead – two men and two women. Seventeen more are in hospital with serious injuries, including one policeman. Seven of these injuries are reported as critical. An attacker was shot dead by police. At least one other gunman is believed to still be at large.

Berlin’s underground is the latest battleground in Germany’s culture war

By the time I got to Mohrenstrasse, the protesters and their BLM placards were long gone. The only thing they’d left behind was some red paint, splattered on the sign above the subway station. I guess this was meant to imply that by naming this U-Bahn station Mohrenstrasse, Berlin’s public transport bigwigs had blood on their hands, or something. But today, in the pale autumn sunlight, it actually looked rather attractive and artistic. I hope they keep it there. For this subway sign to remain here, albeit with a light splattering of red paint upon it, would, to my mind, be a good solution to a problem that’s dogged Berlin’s U-Bahn network for years: namely, how to tackle the protestors who claim that the name Mohrenstrasse (Street of the Moors) is racist.

Never a dull sentence: the journalism of Harry Perry Robinson

Is Boris Johnson a fan of Harry Perry Robinson? If he isn’t, he really ought to be. Reading this absorbing biography, I was struck by how much they have in common — especially in their early lives. Both men went to public school, then on to Oxford, then into journalism, where they proved incapable of writing a dull sentence. They both divorced and remarried — and were also American citizens, for a while. Both dipped a toe into politics, but while Boris took the plunge, Harry stepped back and remained a jobbing hack until his dying day, the finest journalist of his generation. The biggest difference, however, is that Harry was born in 1859, which is why you’ve probably never heard of him. I certainly hadn’t until I read Joseph McAleer’s fascinating book.

The battle over a German town’s black patron saint

At first glance, the pretty German town of Coburg seems an unlikely arena for the latest skirmish in the culture wars. The birthplace of Prince Albert (and one of Queen Victoria’s favourite holiday spots), it’s a quaint and tranquil place which miraculously came through the last century virtually unscathed. Yet now this historic backwater finds itself at the centre of controversy, on account of its patron saint, St Maurice, aka the Coburg Moor. St Maurice is a ubiquitous presence in Coburg. His profile adorns the town’s coat of arms, and numerous public buildings. It’s even on the manhole covers. Now Alisha Archie and Juliane Reuther (who live in Berlin but come from the region) have started a petition calling for this symbol to be redesigned.

Online chess is the ultimate lockdown sport

How have you been filling these listless homebound hours we’ve been given by the government? I’ve been frittering them away playing online chess, and it seems I’m not alone. The Economist reports that traffic on chess.com, the leading chess website, has more than doubled during lockdown. Log on at any time and you’ll find tens of thousands of games in progress. Once upon a time, in that lost age before the world wide web, chess players had to get dressed and leave the house to feed their habit. Now, in our brave new virtual world, those days are long gone. Today anyone with an internet connection can play ad infinitum, against an endless array of players from all around the world. Simply fire up your computer and away you go.

Germans can laugh at Fawlty Towers, so why can’t Brits?

Now UKTV (owned by the BBC) has removed the classic ‘Germans’ episode of Fawlty Towers from its playlist, this sorry no-platform saga has tipped over from tragedy into farce. Is there really anyone in British broadcasting who doesn’t understand that this comic meisterwerk actually makes a mockery of xenophobia? Surely everyone can see it’s satirising and lampooning pathetic Little Englanders, personified by John Cleese’s Basil Fawlty? Apparently not. First broadcast 45 years ago, this episode, more than any other, has become part of British cultural history, spawning the familiar catchphrase, ‘Don’t mention the war.’ In the 30 years I’ve been travelling around Germany, reporting on that complex country, I’ve never met one German who objected to the show, and there’s no reason why they should.

This crisis could be the catalyst for a golden age of British theatre

The arts are in a state of crisis. How often have you heard that before? Well, this time around it happens to be true. In the age of coronavirus, it’s clear that the old way of doing things won’t work any more. Theatres, in particular, have been quick to grasp the bleeding obvious: cramming lots of people into crowded spaces has suddenly become extremely difficult. How do you fill a theatre in an era of social distancing? Short answer: you can’t. The response from theatre practitioners has been fairly predictable. What the theatre needs, they tell us, is more public cash. West End producer Sonia Friedman says that 70 per cent of performing arts companies will close by Christmas if there is no government rescue package, reports the Telegraph.

Welder, banjo player, comedian, actor, and now artist – Billy Connolly interviewed

We are in a basement gallery in London’s West End, and Britain’s greatest comedian is doing what he does best — sharing his delight at the daft absurdities of daily life. He remembers seeing a little boy wading into the freezing waters at Aberdeen. ‘You make a certain noise when the wave comes up. It’s a noise that you can only repeat by shoving a hot potato up a donkey’s arse.’ He is making this empty gallery feel as though it’s full of people — and a bunch of strangers laugh like old friends. ‘A lot of my stuff doesn’t have punchlines’. He doesn’t need them. ‘It’s lovely just making a big picture, and saying, “I was there, and I’d like to invite you to share it with me.”’ Billy Connolly retired from stand-up in December 2018 and has no plans to return.

I’m walking round Britain – in my back garden

Isolation forces us to work out what really matters

When times are hard it helps to remember those who’ve endured far harder times. I remember my friend Manfred Alexander, who escaped from a concentration camp and hid in my grandfather’s flat in Berlin during the second world war. The month he spent alone in that apartment was far harder than any self-isolation I’ll ever face, yet he survived and prospered. Manfred Alexander was born in 1920, into a bourgeois German-Jewish family, and became friends with my Gentile German grandfather in Berlin in the 1930s. Growing up in Berlin, Judaism wasn’t a big part of Manfred’s identity. It was only when he was expelled from school for being Jewish that he learnt who his Jewish classmates were. Cut off from respectable society, he drifted into more bohemian circles, where he met my grandfather, Werner von Biel.

Is there any better place for an EU-subsidised arts festival than Galway?

I was still digesting my delicious breakfast (kippers, poached eggs and soda bread — all local) when the sad news reached our party of freeloaders (sorry, I mean distinguished international journalists): a force ten gale was blowing in, so tonight’s opening ceremony on the headland by the harbour had been cancelled. ‘Ah well, let’s go and get drunk,’ said my new friend Shane. So we did. Galway is this year’s European Capital of Culture and, while Brexiteers may welcome their liberation from this perennial EU shindig, if you’re going to stage a state--subsidised arts festival anywhere then Ireland’s liveliest little city is probably the best place, despite the frequently filthy weather. There are all kinds of arty events all through the year, but the main attraction is Galway itself and the joyful people who inhabit it.

Why Europhiles should welcome Brexit day

As Big Ben fails to bong tonight, and Brexiteers toast a famous victory, will those who voted for Remain be ranting or sulking, or simply crying into their beer? If so, they should perhaps stop feeling so sorry for themselves. Of course, if you’re a Europhile, today is hardly a day of celebration – but neither is it a day for misery. Because if you believe in the EU, as I do, you should welcome Brexit Day. Brexit isn’t just a fresh start for Britain – it’s also a fresh start for the EU. For nearly 30 years, ever since Maastricht, Britain has been a constant drag on the development of the European Union. De Gaulle was right: Britain was never temperamentally cut out to be a member of this club of nations. Its history and its national character meant it was never going to work.

Nicholas Parsons: 1923 - 2020

Nicholas Parsons died this morning at the age of 96. In 2011, he was interviewed by William Cook for The Spectator, who noted that Parsons’ enduring success lay in his ability to laugh at himself: When I was a kid, watching Sale of the Century on my grandma’s colour telly, Nicholas Parsons used to seem like the smartest man in show business. Meeting him half a lifetime later, in a rooftop restaurant in Kensington, I’m pleased to find that he still looks just as dapper. His blue blazer is neatly pressed, his white shirt is crisply ironed and his bright eyes sparkle like a schoolboy’s. You’d never guess he was in his eighties, with more than 60 years in showbiz behind him. He’s worked with Tony Hancock, Kenneth Williams — all the greats, and he’s outlived the lot of them.

Is St Edmund’s body buried beneath a Suffolk tennis court?

Here in St Edmundsbury cathedral, a bunch of clerics and local bigwigs are preparing for a most unusual anniversary. Throughout 2020 the inhabitants of this historic market town will be celebrating the 1,000th birthday of a building that ceased to exist nearly 500 years ago. The Benedictine Abbey of Bury St Edmunds was founded by King Canute in 1020 to house the body of King Edmund, England’s original patron saint. Traditionally said to have been born in 841 and crowned King of East Anglia in 855, Edmund was captured in 869 by the Danes, who told him he could be their puppet king if he renounced Christianity. He refused, so the Danes tied him to a tree, shot arrows at him and chopped his head off. When his head was reunited with his mutilated body (with the help of a talking wolf) he became a saint.

Wow, this is good: Grange Park Opera’s Ivan the Terrible reviewed

The Grand Union Canal, a serene sanctuary amid the urban sprawl

It was a Saturday afternoon in September, the end of summer, and I was feeling sorry for myself. I’d gone to see my son play football in Slough. He was on the bench, his team had lost, and now I had to carry his kitbag home while he went out with his teammates. I’d missed my bus back to Uxbridge and it was an hour until the next one. I was trudging back into town when I saw a signpost for the Grand Union Canal. Along the towpath, I reckoned it was about eight miles to Uxbridge. Sod it: I decided to walk home. When I finally reached Uxbridge dusk was falling and I was feeling happier than I’d felt in ages. I’d hardly seen a soul (a lone fisherman drinking beer, two blokes dredging for scrap metal) but I’d seen swans, herons, cormorants and my first kingfisher.

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