Welcome to Clay Lane
Straightforward English
“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
New and archive material, updated frequently. Passages for reading, brainteasers for solving, and music for listening.
Latest • February 14
Latest • February 14
Latest • February 6
Post Box : Just ask for help
Verb and Noun Find in Think and Speak
Many words can serve as noun or verb depending on context: see if you can prove this with the examples below. Nouns go well with words such as the/a, or his/her; verbs go well after I/you/he etc..
1 Reach. 2 Travel. 3 Act. 4 Boot. 5 Feature. 6 Shoe. 7 Stop. 8 Wonder. 9 Film.
Variations: 1.if possible, use your noun in the plural, e.g. cat → cats. 2.use your verb in a past form, e.g. go → went. 3.use your noun in a sentence with one of these words: any, enough, fewer, less, no, some.
Passages of history, wonder and spiritual counsel, drawn from the Bible and from the lives of the saints and martyrs, with a special attention to those of the British isles.
Picture: © Saffron Blaze, CC BY-SA 4.0.. Source.
Stories from Britain and elsewhere confirming the social and economic benefits of keeping politicians and their cronies out of the trade and business of ordinary people.
Picture: © lvm15, CC BY-SA 2.0.. Source.
Stories from the world of cricket, football and other sports, and the men and women who have played them.
Picture: © DeFacto, CC BY-SA 4.0.. Source.
Tales from our cousins to the West, telling of their independence from Britain, their bloody civil war, their runaway prosperity, and the slender thread by which it hangs.
Picture: © U.S. Department of Defense. Public domain.. Source.
Tales of tragedy, ambition and heroism from the Battle of Marathon and Hannibal’s passage of the Alps to Caesar’s fateful crossing of the Rubicon.
Picture: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Public domain image.. Source.
Passages defending the right and obligation of every citizen to judge whatever is good and true, and to talk back to those who govern him.
Picture: © Antony McCallum (Wyrdlight.com), via Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0.. Source.