I must report on this year's Peterloo commemoration before it slips by. After last year's event, when several hundred people turned up to hear readings by Maxine Peake, Christopher Eccleston et al, we deliberately decided to go for something a little different, not attracting as big a crowd but trying to refocus attention on our primary goal, the ( Read more... )

I must get on and give you my account of last week's Peterloo commemoration, which was our biggest and best yet. We usually do a formal wreath-laying on August 16, and hold a rally on the Sunday, but as Sunday fell on the 16th this year it was a single event, and our new idea was "the Peterloo Picnic" - Peterloo as it should have been, a peaceful ( Read more... )

I need to get something down about Richard's reinterment in Leicester on Thursday. I watched it on television (while cleaning the silver), having turned down the opportunity to apply for a ticket in the ballot, as I continue to believe that his remains should have been returned to York. Unfortunately the people who led the pro-York campaign ( Read more... )

People have been linking to a site giving entries from historical issues of the Radio Times, so that you can find out what was on the day you were born.

All the reports I've seen so far concentrated on what was on television when they were born, but as I'm addicted to Radio Four I naturally turned to its predecessor, the Home ServiceThis started ( Read more... )

I posted this extract from my grandfather's play, The Conquering Hero, on his birthday a couple of years ago, during its revival at the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond. But I thought it was worth bringing out again, and this same section rather than any other part of the play, because it's a hundred years today from the scene depicted, and I think ( Read more... )

And today is the 156th birthday of my other grandfather, Allan! I've posted various extracts from his published works in recent years, but today I'm going for a couple of letters to his sister-in-law May, detailing his excitement at meeting his hero William Morris at a dinner in 1892 ( Read more... )

I've been very bad at keeping up with my ramblings in various parts of the country since we went to press four weeks ago. This post is intended to catch up with assorted picture spam from March.

( Nine pics of Ely cathedral )

Since my father died, Mandela has been my father - a distant father, whom I never saw, but still there to love and inspire. Many of us are orphans tonight.

Also posted on Dreamwidth, with
( Read more... )

I was spreading an old newspaper on the floor where the cats' litter tray now lives, and suddenly noticed the headline "Daft and delirious: meet the new Doctor Who". Underneath that was a nice photo of Matt Smith in David Tennant's cast-off shirt and tie looking at what I think must be Rory's phone, plus a very enthusiastic review of The Eleventh ( Read more... )

I went to see Peter Grimes at the Lowry last night, part of Opera North's week of Britten's operas there for the centenary. Surprised to find I knew Mrs Sedley...

There's a rather expensive programme - £7 - though it's better value if you're going to all three operas (I'm skipping the Dream but going to Death in Venice tomorrow). And it's full ( Read more... )