In 1989, Tim Moore moved into the last house in Chiswick with an outside toilet. Intrigued by a subsequent encounter with an elderly former resident, he finds himself inspired to travel back to the land before now, experiencing the hardships and pleasures enjoyed and endured by Moores gone by.
The journey that follows takes him through the world of historical re-enactment: living on bramble leaves, Johnny cake and porridge, Moore travels from the Iron Age to the Steam Age, from Roman legionary to Tudor master to Yankee spy, sharing straw beds and daft hats with period obsessives driven by socio-historical curiosity, disillusionment with the modern world, or a simple nostalgia for campfires, flatulence and brutality.
I Believe in Yesterday is an odyssey through 2,000 years of filth and fury, to a time where men were men, the nights were black, the world was your outside toilet and everything tasted faintly of leeks.
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Moore has never been afraid to suffer for his art. In pursuit of comic travelogue gold, he's followed in the footsteps of a nineteenth-century explorer; driven, silver-suited, across Europe in a temperamental Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow; cycled the 3,500km-plus route of the Tour de France; and made a pilgrimage to Santiago accompanied only by a donkey. But none of this compares to what he endured for this superbly funny new book - Time Out
One of our most amiable writers - The Times
His funniest book... Possibly the best book ever completed by a man covered in congealed animal fat, sweat and canon smoke - Independent
Moore is a talented and very funny writer - Daily Telegraph
The main lesson of this entertaining trawl through history-as-dressing-up is that living the way we used to is not much better - Times Literary Supplement
Hugely enjoyable... Whether he's firing cannons, battling Gauls or forgetting how to get into his codpiece, moore is always entertaining, and this book is laugh-out-loud funny and genuinely educational - The Gloss
A witty, inventive and engaging book - Waterstones Books Quarterly
The tone is light and Moore a delightful writer - London Lite
A live and amusing... interesting and entertaining read - TNT Magazine
