CLAY LANE is a free-to-use website of educational materials, created for adult learners who are interested in English language, history and literature.

It is named in honour of NL Clay, a Yorkshire schoolmaster who published more than a dozen textbooks (all long out of print now) designed to help people of all ages to think, speak and write clearly, to understand more of the world we live in, and to use our imagination. These books were used in homes and secondary schools all across the country from the late 1920s until the 1960s, when educational fashions changed. Norman Clay was my great-uncle. You can find out more about him from my brief bio: About NL Clay.

Clay’s constant refrain was that conscientious citizens should admire good plain English, correctly spelled and punctuated, as a defence against strident, condescending and manipulative voices in the media. He also encouraged us to be informed by a breadth of reading which did justice to the past, and took history’s lessons to heart. He did not believe in ‘progress’, if that meant leaving the past behind, like a restless traveller on a road; he believed in ‘improvement’, in building on the past, like a man who repairs and upgrades his beloved family home.

His books fell into two broad categories, anthologies of literature (including non-fiction) and textbooks on the use of the English language. Clay Lane follows a similar pattern. Passages of prose and verse from Thucydides to John Buchan, from Homer to Rudyard Kipling, are collected in The Copy Book. Exercises for practising grammar, vocabulary and free composition are collected in Think and Speak (the title of Clay’s first book, published when he was in his mid-twenties). Use the Clay Lane Blog to keep track of new additions to both, as well as posts you may have missed.

Although Clay Lane is intended to be very like Clay’s books, it is not those books themselves. Excellent as they are, they could not be used today without far-reaching changes. The choice of texts is mine, and reflects my view of the world, not his, even if the two coincide on most matters of importance. The exercises are like his in their goals, but I have modified them, expanded them with new material, and provided sample answers or helpful hints — something Clay rarely did. Everything has been reworked in form and content for another time, another audience and another medium. The changes are such that any errors or deficiencies you may find must be laid at my door.

If you like what I’m doing here on Clay Lane, from time to time you could buy me a coffee.

Buy Me a Coffee is a crowdfunding website, used by over a million people. It is designed to help content creators like me make a living from their work. ‘Buy Me a Coffee’ prides itself on its security, and there is no need to register.

The following quotations from Clay’s books give you an idea of what you will find here.

“If ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’ are to be more than catchwords, clear communication must be the rule, and not the exception. In a totalitarian state it may be sufficient for the dictator and his henchmen to be able to use straightforward language. 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.”

Straightforward English (1949)

“We do not take enough pride in the simple but strong English that men of action have written. [...] We ought to see in such reports victories against the persistent enemies of clear communication —  long windedness, love of remote and many-syllabled words, distrust of directness in structure.”

Record and Report (1947)

“Today more than ever we need writers of straightforward English. We need them if we are to preserve the heritage of plain prose against unceasing attacks by powerful enemies — shoddy thinking, speech appealing to prejudice, mass-entertainment with all its supporting printed matter, snobbery, and what deceives the uncritical into thinking its is ‘fine writing’.”

Straightforward English (1949)

“Success in public examinations has often been the reward of those who have neither convictions nor courage but who can reproduce the judgments of others. Even when discussing books in friendly talk that frequently parrot the findings of critics. This weakness on the part of the reader tends to make the reviewers of our newspapers and journals proud of their following and influence, arrogant towards readers and condescending towards authors.”

The English Critic (1939)

“Many disreputable features of present-day reviewing would disappear if the common reader was more self-reliant. But he must be able to rely on something more solid than whim or fancy: he needs some knowledge of critical principles as a basis for judging and developing his own power of judgment. The more he is familiar with the great critics of the past, the less he will think of the little ones of to-day. Indeed, unless he has that familiarity, he cannot fully understand or benefit from the great critics of to-day. For when they discuss seemingly modern problems (which have in fact so often been topics for critics of previous centuries) they are building on the foundations made by their predecessors.”

The English Critic (1939)