Book 12: "Uncle Mort's South Country" by Peter Tinniswood

[kittiwake]

'Now I don’t want any of your bloody silly jokes,' said Carter Brandon as he overtook a telephone maintenance van with scuffed number plates.
'What jokes?' said Uncle Mort.
'Jokes about making sure our passports are in order now we're going South,' said Carter Brandon.
'Jokes about being inoculated and always having a phrase book handy when we go into pubs.'
'I don’t make jokes like that,' said Uncle Mort.
'No?' said Carter Brandon.
''No,' said Uncle Mort. ''I like the South, me. I'm not the least bit prejudiced against Southerners.'
'Are you not?'
'No.'
'But you don’t know any Southerners.'
'I do.'
'How?'
'Through the simple expediency, Carter, of attending as many FA Challenge Cup Finals at Wembley Stadium as is humanly possible and compatible with LNER rail timetables.'

When Carter Brandon's wife doesn’t want to go on holiday with him he asks Uncle Mort to go with him instead. They spend a fortnight touring the South of England by car, staying in B&Bs, visiting pubs, and discussing the vagaries of Southerners. I think it worked better when I heard it serialised on on the radio so that I heard a bit at a time, as it is rather repetitive.

I think I have read one of Peter TInniswood's books a long time ago, but i'm fairly sure that it wasn't this one.