It started from one of those conversations. They generally involve yourself, a mate, a pub, and the consumption of a few pints of beer whilst having a general chat about not much at all. Anyway, as these things do, the conversation turned to ancient battles and ancient civilisations, and reporting news of battles — the [...]

I’m quite into local history and finding out about stuff I didn’t know, so I’m quite a fan of Heritage Open Days, where you generally get a chance to see certain historical thingummies and find out about them for free. Obviously, the “for free” part is another thing which adds to the attractiveness of the [...]

Okay, okay, I have to come clean about the post title. There is no “Mutiny on the Bounty on Ice”, at least as yet, although it surely can’t be long before the BBC attempt to make it into some sort of talent show, no doubt with Andrew Lloyd bleedin’ Webber gurning all over the place. [...]

I’m quite a fan of old historical buildings. This is partly because I love the idea that people used to introduce architectural features on buildings (seemingly up to around the 1940s) just because this would make them look nice, as opposed to the generally more ‘functional’ type building introduced after that. Old church buildings are [...]

Steven Johnson writes about something I vaguely knew about — London’s Broad Street cholera outbreak of 1854. This is the story of how it was identified that cholera was somehow water-borne, as opposed to the previous beliefs that it was somehow carried by the smells or miasma of the urban filth. The commonly understood legend [...]

Or, in reference to it’s previous name, the Hancock… I thought it was you… The Hancock Museum is near Haymarket Metro station in Newcastle. It’s been a Newcastle institution for years. I visited regularly as a child (mostly, I think, because every time I went, my parents would buy me a small plastic dinosaur to [...]

England, my England. [Flag photo by Charlie Hawkins - follow photo link for more details] As Jaybee said the other day, most people seeing the cross of St George flying probably associate it with football hooligans and racism. And that’s not right. The Scots are rightly proud of their flag, as indeed are the Welsh [...]

Last year, I bought a book called The Last Fighting Tommy: The Life of Harry Patch, the Only Surviving Veteran of the Trenches, and promptly placed it in my TBR pile. For one reason or another, it didn’t make its way across to being actively read until this week. And that’s a shame. Harry Patch [...]

I was only a child during the Miner’s Strike of 1984-85, but I remember it. My parents were left-wing and politically active, so even though we weren’t directly affected by the strike, I was very aware of it, and what was going on. It’s also reasonably to say that we were indirectly affected, in terms [...]

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them.“For the Fallen”, Laurence Binyon The image is © Simon Kimber. Instead of talking about what Remembrance Sunday or Armistice [...]