They’re a much-loved feature of rural Britain, gently pointing us in the right direction while blending in with the scenery. But our roadside fingerpost signs are an endangered species. Local councils have either neglected them – leaving travellers to guess where the missing fingers pointed – or replaced them with functional modern posts that stand out like a sore thumb.

Happily, some communities have recognised that fingerposts deserve better, and have restored them to former glories. In the Buckinghamshire village of Chalfont St Giles, this traditional sign is guiding a new generation of travellers. 

By contrast, just a few miles away near Little Chalfont, this old Bucks County Council sign has lost all but one of its fingers. It’s a great help if you’re off to  Chorleywood, but not so good if you’re heading in the other three directions!

For many, Sunday is just another day. A time to shop till you drop and support your favourite team.

So it came as a shock to learn that the 19th century battles against working on the sabbath continue. Today, a ferry sailed to the island of Harris and Lewis on a Sunday for the first time. Posters were displayed urging us to observe the day of rest. Two thirds of the adult population of South Harris opposed the Sunday service.

It’s easy to mock such attitudes. Many of us remember the old Sunday as a desperately dull day, a no-man’s land between the pleasure of Saturday and the inevitable return to work on Monday. But in a world where every high street looks the same, it’s tempting to admire the other-worldliness of South Harris.

Deep under London, Winston Churchill’s memory is cherished. Last year, the Queen opened a new museum honouring her first prime minister and Britain’s greatest war leader. The Churchill museum is an extension of the Cabinet War Rooms, the heart of Britain’s wartime government.

The centrepiece of the new museum is an extraordinary interactive chronicle of Churchill’s life. Click on a year, and the exhibit tells you what he was doing on a given day. Suddenly, a flight of Spitfires roar overhead, the Merlin roar echoing round the underground room.

Churchill was unique. He was an MP for 64 years (give or take the odd break, thanks to a capricious electorate). He was born when Disraeli was PM, and died during Harold Wilson’s first administration, when the Beatles were helping to create the swinging sixties.

The museum displays Karsh of Ottawa’s famous photo portrait of Churchill, taken during a visit to Canada in 1941. The image captured Churchill’s defiance. But Martin Gilbert’s book In search of Churchill revealed that it was far from authentic. Karsh snatched the PM’s cigar, resulting in a gloriously belligerent expression. Gilbert’s book published another shot taken that day, before Karsh stole the premier’s cigar. It suggests Churchill at his most human.

That human side of Churchill was wonderfully captured in the diaries of John Colville, his wartime private secretary. Colville saw the premier in all his moods. Reading the entries, you get a vivid image of life at the heart of Government when Britain’s survival was in the balance. (How can anyone who didn’t live through that amazing time complain about stress?) It’s difficult not to warm to a man who, seeing his private secretary approaching with a telegram in the darkest days of 1940, exclaims ‘not another country gone west’!