J A Richardson

J A Richardson spent twenty years as a market researcher for regional tourist boards, compiling visitor numbers for places that, as the reports politely put it, "underperformed their potential". Richardson came to the opposite conclusion: the towns that tourists skip are usually the ones with the most to say for themselves.

Richardson's guides for CWMK are written from the ground up - from bus timetables, station cafés, local museums staffed by volunteers, and long conversations with the people who actually live there. Each book aims to give a first-time visitor a reason to stay an extra day, and a lifelong resident something they didn't know about their own doorstep.

Richardson lives on the edge of the Chiltern Hills in Buckinghamshire, keeps a dog-eared Ordnance Survey map for every county, and has yet to find a British town without at least one good reason to visit.