While working on a previous sequence and book "England and Nowhere" I felt an affinity with Kipling's view of English history as a layered, continuing story, as related in his children's books "Puck of Pook's Hill" and "Rewards and Fairies". In particular, I felt the poem "Puck's Song" expressed this view best, and started this series of constructed images to illustrate each of the twelve stanzas.
In the process of making these illustrations, I was reminded of a favourite moment at the end of "A Midsummer Night's Dream", when Puck is sent on stage to sweep the room ("I am sent with broom before / To sweep the dust behind the door"), and his broom became a key element in the iconography I have used.
