Award-winning author, Professor Paul Crawford tells us about how his latest novel, The Wonders of Doctor Bent, drew on the life of local ‘Mad Poet’ John Clare, incarcerated at St Andrew’s asylum in ...

John Clare looked in places where nobody else thought to look and he became the greatest labouring-class poet. Perhaps most importantly, he showed us a way of life that has been lost forever.

The nature 19th Century poet John Clare grew up in Helpston, Cambridgeshire, which at the time was part of Northamptonshire, and wrote about the loss of the scenery he loved as a child.