Kieron Dyer, 44, was dying with a rare liver disease just 11 weeks ago. Now, he speaks for the first time after a 'miracle' transplant There’s a sense of elegy too, of course as he ponders the dead and tries to imagine lost lives, traversing shadowlands that somehow seem to reach into the present day with very long fingers. Prince William was 'furious' when his godmother Lady Susan Hussey became embroiled in a race row, Omid Scobie claims in new book This sort of thing could sound morose. But I’d argue that Green is highlighting something very important, namely a recognition of our own mortality. Piecing together the full story requires the full detective powers of a historian, not to mention a good measure of impartiality.

Louis Theroux reveals he's considering a major step to 'continue his career' after losing his eyebrows to a health condition How would you like to be remembered? From scattering ashes on a favourite walk, to a party with a bouncy castle, many people are deciding a traditional funeral just isn't right for them Winchelsea - 13th century East Sussex port and town lost to the sea between about 1270 and 1288, now called Old Winchelsea to distinguish it from the new replacement Winchelsea town founded about three miles away by Edward I in the 1280’s. “It was the first major town in Britain to drown since the beginning of recorded history.” New Winchelsea becomes depopulated gradually from about 1350 as the estuary silts up and the wine trade, upon which its prosperity is founded, diverts to other ports. It’s said we Britons love an underdog, and Shadowlands is a shrine to them, ‘the places that slipped through the fingers of history’. Ryan Phillippe, 49, posts rare photo with daughter Kai, 12, whom he shares with ex Alexis Knapp of Pitch Perfect fame: 'Pizza was had, Elf was watched'Paris Hilton is seen for the FIRST time since revealing birth of daughter London as she dons THREE chic ensembles to plug Paris in Love

However, as we learn in today’s episode, the memory of what happened at Tryweryn has lived on for many decades since Capel Celyn was drowned. Not just in the hearts and minds of the Welsh people, but also in the ghostly remains of the village which are visible today when the reservoir dries up. The above are but three vibrant and beautiful visions of lives now past, but the precious things that do remain are held like trophies of life by this amazingly adroit author. His words echo through the ages as the pitiful, beautiful and amazingly human pieces of our ancient world are resurrected. These words may last for mere moments, but are in a style that thrills and lets the modern man feel such a shaft of glory in our own forgotten past, that those moments could turn into aeons. There’s also far too much ‘horrid history’ for my liking - needlessly gruesome details of warfare, natural disasters and massacring animals, which all felt a bit pornographic.Historian Matthew Green travels across Britain to tell the forgotten history of our lost cities, ghost towns and vanished villages. Revealing the extraordinary stories of how these places met their fate - and exploring how they have left their mark on our landscape and our imagination - Shadowlands is a deeply evocative and dazzlingly original account of Britain's past.