In July 1977 I visited my friend Kate Preston. She was a keen tennis player, and I remember her beating me at the table version as we watched in awe while Virginia Wade won the ladies’ final at Wimbledon to celebrate the Queen’s Silver Jubilee.
I recall Kate telling me about her long-term project to track and document the ‘Lamanche Zodiac’. The 25-year-old me had never heard the term zodiac outside of astrology, and I also assumed that ‘Lamanche’ must be located somewhere in France. Thankfully, Kate set me right: the cleverly derived name came from the large section of the North West of England that she believed this terrestrial zodiac crossed: the
