Clay Lane

A misfit duckling grew up with rejection as a way of life, until he thought all hope was gone.

The Ugly Duckling is one of the best-loved of all the fairy tales of Danish storyteller Hans Christian Andersen, a contemporary and friend of Charles Dickens. Below you will find a very brief précis of the story, which reminds us that it’s not where you came from that matters, it’s where you belong.

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A prince falls for a dazzling dance-partner who teasingly vanishes at midnight.

An unhappy young woman treated as a serving-maid by her step-sisters is magically transformed into the belle of the ball. But the prince whose heart she has captured is not content with a lover who vanishes at midnight.

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The most important English-born composer of Handel’s day, known for his tuneful music and very busy diary.

Though little-known today, Charles Avison (1709-1770) led a busy life composing, teaching and giving daily concerts in North East England, justly gaining a reputation as the 18th-century’s finest English-born composer.

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A fastidious prince felt he deserved a girl of royal refinement, and he certainly found one.

A young and idealistic prince thought he deserved a wife of right royal delicacy, but the daughters of the kings in neighbouring kingdoms did not meet his expectations.

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Eli Parish of Teignmouth in Devon became one of Europe’s most celebrated virtuosos.

Eli Parish (1808-1849) was a boy from Teignmouth in Devon who went on to become one of Europe’s most celebrated and dextrous concert harpists, and a prolific composer.

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The 17th-century entrepreneur developed a way of smelting iron with coke rather than charcoal, but the Civil War frustrated his plans.

Seventeenth-century Government fuel policy made English iron-smelting so expensive that the country became dependent on cheap foreign imports. Dud Dudley had just devised an alternative process, when the Civil War put the industrial revolution on hold.

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