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  • Published: 30 May 2026
  • ISBN: 9781529935882
  • Imprint: Doubleday
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 288
  • RRP: $65.00
Categories:

Along the Borders

In search of what divides and unites us

  • Richard Collett



Award-winning travel journalist Richard Collett journeys across the United Kingdom’s borderlands and frontiers to explore our increasingly fragmented regional identities and find out what it is that brings us all together.

Searching for a sense of national and personal identity in an increasingly fragmented United Kingdom, Borderlands merges British history with contemporary politics and culture. Collett’s journey takes him to the banks of the River Tamar - a natural boundary dividing Anglo-Saxon Devon from Celtic Cornwall for a thousand years, to the English-Welsh borders, where Offa’s Dyke has separated the two countries since the 8th century. He then travels north to the Anglo-Scottish borderlands, Orkney and Shetland, and across the Irish Sea to Northern Ireland.

Richard Collett speaks to a cast of characters including Cornish nationalists, Welsh speakers teaching Welsh in England, and migrant charity workers helping refugees. For the first time in centuries, Brexit and the pandemic made hard borders an unprecedented reality. Calls for Scottish, Welsh, and even Cornish independence, are a constant backdrop to Collett’s journey. In Northern Ireland, there are fears of a hard border reigniting ‘The Troubles’, while in southern England, issues of immigration have turned the Kent coast into a maritime frontier and political battleground.

Collett explores the rise of regional identities in the midst of an ever-loosening sense of national unity, but ultimately, this isn’t a book about differences and divisions. Borderlands is a travel book that tries to find what unites Britain.

  • Published: 30 May 2026
  • ISBN: 9781529935882
  • Imprint: Doubleday
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 288
  • RRP: $65.00
Categories:

Praise for Along the Borders

Along The Borders shows us the borders of the British Isles with all their frustrations, idiosyncrasies and downright stupidities. Collett proves to be a knowledgeable and compelling guide. His journey blends beautiful descriptions with insightful interviews as he drops in for tea and cake with local historians, politicians and, to be frank, some folk who are as bewildering as the borders they straddle. He writes with great humour but also tackles the politics head on. After reading it, you will begin to see borders everywhere and question their purpose or at least their history.

Alan Cleaver, author of The Postal Paths

An absorbing journey across the fractured frontiers of the United Kingdom, Along the Borders is packed with intriguing details, revealing insights and flashes of hope. Smart and reflective, travel writer Richard Collett provides a fresh perspective on shifting histories, cultures and identities. A brilliant debut.

Shafik Meghji, author of Small Earthquakes

Along the Borders is a fascinating exploration of Britain’s borderlands, those liminal places-in-between which inform all our lives – perhaps more than many of us realise. Richard Collett handles this deep subject, with its sensitive cultural and political undertones, with care and humour, writing a book which is at once relatable and thought-provoking. A must read for anyone interested in British culture, politics and identity, told through entertaining and immersive travel narratives.

Daniel Stables, author of Fiesta