Welcome to Clay Lane
Straightforward English
An old-fashioned, commonsense education in English language and culture, adapted from pre-1960s textbooks for home and school by Yorkshire schoolmaster NL Clay.
“The course should train pupils to observe, learn more of the world they live in, think clearly, use the imagination and to speak clearly.”
NL Clay, Think and Speak (1929)
Clay Lane is a traditional British education, of the kind seen in English schools before the educational changes of the 1960s. It is inspired by textbooks written by NL Clay, Senior English Master at Ecclesfield Grammar School in Yorkshire, and used across the country from the late 1920s.
Read short passages from literature and history, many of them chosen to provide a commentary on modern events and opinions. Or try your hand at puzzles in grammar and vocabulary like those Clay set for pupils aged 12-16. How would you have got on in the fourth form?
This site is for people who appreciate our heritage of strong, plain-spoken English from Shakespeare and the King James Bible to Austen, Dickens and Kipling, who take pride in the courage and vision of our country’s heroes both small and great, and who enjoy playing with words, sentences and ideas.
Materials for the study of good, correct, straightforward English.
Traditional, pre-Sixties methods and content.
Read interesting passages from history and literature.
Practise writing your own English sentences.
Ask for help if you need it.
“If ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’ are to be more than catchwords, clear communication must be the rule, and not the exception. Do we want a society in which placid masses take their orders from bosses? The alternative to government by force is government by persuasion. The latter must mean that the governed can talk back to the governors.”
NL Clay, Straightforward English (1949)
Post Box : Get In Touch
Grok : Ask Grok
New and archive material, updated frequently. Passages for reading, brainteasers for solving, and music for listening.
Latest • February 26
Latest • February 25
Latest • February 23
From Robinson Crusoe Goes to Sea
Now I saw plainly the goodness of his observations about the middle station of life; how easy, how comfortable, he had lived all his days, and never had been exposed to tempests at sea or troubles on shore; and I resolved that I would, like a true repenting prodigal, go home to my father.
Spinners Find in Think and Speak
For each group of words, compose a sentence that uses all three. You can use any form of the word: for example, cat → cats, go → went, or quick → quickly, though neigh → neighbour is stretching it a bit.
The words in this puzzle are taken randomly from a list of 927 common words. You can change e.g. cat → cats, go → went, quick → quickly.
1 Fly. Note. Science.
2 Participant. Structure. Total.
3 Management. Move. Sea.
Variations: 1. include direct and indirect speech 2. include one or more of these words: although, because, despite, either/or, if, unless, until, when, whether, which, who 3. use negatives (not, isn’t, neither/nor, never, nobody etc.)
Stories from the ancient and mighty civilisation of India, from classical mythology to the Mughal Emperors, the East India Company and the British Raj.
Picture: © Pmsarangi, CC BY-SA 4.0.. Source.
Stories about our friends across the Channel, from Roman times to the Hundred Years’ War, her bloody Revolution, and the giddying rise and fall of Emperor Napoleon.
Picture: © Patrick. CC BY-SA 2.0.. Source.
Tales of scientific innovation and merchant enterprise, from steam power and life-saving medicines to new trade partners far away, and new ways to reach them.
Picture: © Maggie Stephens. CC BY-SA 2.0.. Source.
The passages in this section illustrate how people have thought of the Englishman over the centuries. They include the impressions of writers from England and also from abroad.
Picture: © Trevormeisel, Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 3.0.. Source.
Passages from English verse, from Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf to Shakespeare’s sonnets, Tennyson’s Charge of the Light Brigade, Kipling’s If and many more.
Picture: Photo by Elliott & Fry. Public domain image.. Source.
Stories about the British transport revolution that changed the world, from the first locomotive and the first whistle to Flying Scotsman.
Picture: © Daniel Kraft, CC BY-SA 2.0.. Source.