Eccentric Cambridge Guide
Great British eccentrics in the English university town of Cambridge
The university town of Cambridge, England, is known for beautiful historic colleges and other tourist attractions, but Eccentric Cambridge reveals its offbeat side
Britain has always been known for its eccentric characters and its quirky history, and author Benedict le Vay has tapped into that vein with his successful series of 'Eccentric' guides. The series started with Eccentric Britain, and guides to cities like London, Edinburgh and Oxford have followed. Eccentric Cambridge shows that the ancient university town in East Anglia can more than hold its own when it comes to eccentricity.
As someone who lives near Cambridge, I'm very familiar with the eccentric character who appears on the book's front cover, Snowy Farr, who sadly died earlier this month. He was often to be seen in the city centre with his collection of animals. White mice would run round his hat, and there would be dogs and cats around somewhere, even sometimes a goat. And all the while he was raising money for charity.
Eccentric Cambridge taught me a lot I didn't know about Snowy Farr, and introduced me to many more great British eccentrics, and unusual facts and trivia about this beautiful town. The original Nosey Parker was a master at Corpus Christi College in Cambridge, while Hobson's Choice is another expression which originated there.
Cambridge University has been home to many famous students, from Wittgenstein and Bertrand Russell to Carol Vorderman and Rachel Weisz, and great comedians like Peter Cook, Stephen Fry, Douglas Adams, Eric Idle and Bill Oddie. (Read more about Comic Cambridge here.)
Little wonder that among its tens of thousands of students and masters, there have been some rather eccentric people. They range from the mildly eccentric like Richard Collins, the nude cyclist, and Charlie Cavey, who busks from inside a dustbin, through to one of the great pranksters of all time, William Horace de Vere Cole. His jokes ranged from instructing a team of workmen, who were awaiting instructions, to start digging a trench at Piccadilly Circus in London, to buying eight front row tickets for an awful London play, then hiring eight bald men to go to the theatre, each with one letter of a rather rude word painted on top of his head.
Eccentric Cambridge isn't a guidebook, but it will certainly tell you which are the most interesting pubs to go to, where to get something to eat, where to stay and where to go shopping, the stories behind the colleges and museums, and some places to visit nearby. The Museum of Fenland Drainage, anyone? In short, Eccentric Cambridge is an essential read. Cambridge will never be the same again.
Eccentric Cambridge is published in the UK by Bradt Travel Guides at £6.99 and in the USA by The Globe Pequot Press at $13.95.
And if you think you would make a good travel writer and guidebook author, why not enter the travel writing competition being run by the Independent on Sunday and Bradt Travel Guides? Click here for details.
Read about Eccentric Edinburgh too.
