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)
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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
Statements, Questions and Commands Find in Think and Speak
Use each word below in a sentence. Try to include at least one statement, one question and one command among your sentences. Note that some verbs make awkward or meaningless words of command, e.g. need, happen.
1 Save. 2 Sound. 3 Beach. 4 Cycle. 5 Fight. 6 Communicate. 7 Carpet. 8 Weigh. 9 Pace.
Variations: 1. use a minimum of seven words for each sentence 2. include negatives, e.g. isn’t, don’t, never 3. use the words ‘must’ to make commands 4. compose a short dialogue containing all three kinds of sentence: one statement, one question and one command
Passages examining Britain’s sometimes baffling constitutional monarchy, and telling the story of its enemies, its champions, and its reformers.
Picture: © CJCS (USA). 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.
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.
Fables and true tales about animals, including a dog who regularly commuted to Matlock, a horse who didn’t approve of bad language, and a cat who saved her owners from an earthquake.
Picture: © Luis García. CC BY-SA 3.0.. 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.
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.