It is the 75th anniversary of the Dunkirk Evacuation. As part of the research I've been doing in the newspaper archives of Manx National Heritage for the 'human' side of life on-island during WW2 I have been looking at some of the relevant stories - and was fascinated to find this -


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The BBC have a new searchable archive called Genome. You can find the Radio Times TV listings from any given day between 1923 and 2009. Fellow Brits may, therefore, easily see what was on TV the day they were born, or married, or whatever ( Read more... )

I said in yesterday's post that talking with my Mum had brought to my mind some of the strange names that adults around me went by when I was a child. The origins of some of them I know - but the origins of the others are lost in time for both Mum and I ( Read more... )

I've been online at a meeting to get WriterConUK organised (September 12th - 14th. Come on and join us, it'll be fun!), and about 1/2 way through S2C comes into the living room clutching a small white object ( Read more... )

I have been watching some of the TV coverage from Normandy both yesterday and today ( Read more... )

I've just had one of those moments when you realise you've turned into your own mother ( Read more... )

I have been deeply entrenched in social history over the past few days - primarily involving the periods of the two World Wars.
Since my last entry I have actually read the book of 'letters, diaries and memories of the Great War', that I wrote about, and I found it fascinating - and not just because one of my great uncles is in there!

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I was invited to a book launch last week but, sadly, couldn't take time off work to go.  The book in question was This Terrible Ordeal written by Matthew Richardson, a social historian who works for Manx National Heritage ( Read more... )

Like so many others I have taken time to pause today, and remember those killed in all the conflicts of the last 100 years or so ( Read more... )

Last night D-d and I went to a memorial service for the 50 people killed in the Summerland Disaster 40 years ago ( Read more... )