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
Confusables Find in Think and Speak
In each group below, you will find words that are similar to one another, but not exactly the same. Compose your own sentences to bring out the similarities and differences between them, whether in meaning, grammar or use.
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 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.
Heart-breaking tales of slavery, in which Britain played a shameful part; and heart-warming tales of Abolition, in which she played a courageous one.
Picture: © Wilfredor. Public domain.. Source.
Britain has always demanded respect, open seas, and to be left in peace to ‘work out our own salvation’ — a courtesy we should extend to others.
Picture: © CEphoto, Uwe Aranas. CC BY-SA 3.0.. Source.
Stories illustrating noble deeds in matters both great and small, such as the noble gesture of Sir Philip Sidney, and the determination of Benjamin Disraeli.
Picture: © Jonathan Keelty, CC BY-SA 2.0.. Source.
The artistic struggles and triumphs of composers from the British Isles and abroad, many in their own words — and accompanied by their music.
Picture: © Colin, CC BY-SA 4.0.. Source.