Random Home presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook release of Long Street from Jarrow, written and go through by Stuart Maconie.

In the autumn of 1936, some 200 men from the Tyneside town of Jarrow marched 300 kilometers to London in protest against the destruction of their towns and industries. Exactly 80 years on, Stuart Maconie, strolls from north to south retracing the route from the emblematic Jarrow Crusade. Pursuing history’s footsteps, Maconie is definitely searching for what Modern Britain is really about Long Street from Jarrow: A trip through Britain then and now like today.

Venturing down the country’s spine, Maconie goes through a get that is, in some ways, very much the same as the Britain from the thirties with its political turbulence, austerity, north/south separate, food banks and undoubtedly, football mania. However in different ways, it is totally unrecognisable; highstreets peppered with pound shops and e-cigarette vendors, smoothie bars and Costas on every corner.

Maconie visits the great, established yet evolving cities of Leeds, Sheffield and London, as well seeing that the sleepy hamlets, quiet lanes and roaring motorways. He matches those with stories to tell and whose voices build a funny, complicated and entertaining story of Britain, then and now. Written in Maconie’s signature style, this is a fascinating exploration of a modern nation that, though looks and sounds strangely familiar, has been completely transformed.