Arts
The Conques Tympanum Decoded
Introduction Back in the 1990s while returning from a jaunt into Cathar Country in our VW camper, quite by chance we made an overnight stop in the ancient village of Conques in the Aveyron region [more…]
History
20th Century
The Desert War – August 1940
We reach August 1940, eighty years ago. Things still looking bleak for the Brits and it doesn’t really improve this month and we moan about the lockdown, albeit with some justification. The Italians had been [more…]
20th Century
The Spitfire, of course, Part 4
Musings on the development of the Miles M20 prototype Firstly, a reminder of where we started back in part one, I suggested in the first article in this series that the Spitfire was not an [more…]
19th Century
I never meant to write a novel
Today A Bear’s Diary is published as a hardback. It has been available as an ebook for a couple of months. It’s a shortish novel at 65,000 words, decorated with old engravings which give it [more…]
19th Century
The Battle of Salamanca
As any Puffin knows, I’m a card-carrying member of the ‘First Duke of Wellington Fan Club’. No, not because of his good looks, how very dare you! He’s dead, he is, more’s the pity – [more…]
Arts
A Glass Half Full
In a previous article, I asked whether you had ever gazed into your pint and wondered about the beginnings of beer and brewing. This time, I’ll ask you another question. It’s about the pint pot [more…]
20th Century
An early airman’s tragic adventure
Early 1930: It had been a depressing English winter – cold, dark and wet for weeks on end. In West Wickham, a young man who had left Australia five years earlier and settled here in [more…]
History
The Brown Bull Hotel
In the eighties I worked as a Home Office representative in Immigration Tribunal Appeals in London. We were a team of ordinary civil servants and were pitted against solicitors, barristers, silks, practitioners with an agenda. [more…]
20th Century
The Desert War – July 1940
Now we reach the 80th anniversary of July 1940 in the Desert War. Slim pickings in Libya and Egypt this month, both sides were gearing up for battle but the Navies were kept on their [more…]