20th Century
About Little Women
We play a game at work with girls’ heights. There is a reason for this. Colleagues are going to build a tunnel to the shop next door and steal their toys. To confuse the local [more…]
History
20th Century
Desert Diorama, Part One
As well as researching “Desert Mysteries” and the exploits of the “Desert Fox”, amongst my other hobbies is the construction of scale model dioramas. For a diorama, I design and build by hand the baseboard, [more…]
21st Century
Last Bastion of the Colonial Home Guard
The Home Guard is institutionalised at the National Police Service and is evident in the lives that have been claimed through state-sanctioned violence during the ongoing Gen Z protests. 14 August 2024 According to a [more…]
20th Century
Report From Kenya 1955, Part Nine
On his way home from reporting on Kenya for the Birmingham Mail in 1955, my uncle John Alldridge filed this report from Uganda – Jerry F Colour problem in reverse Almost 50 years ago another [more…]
20th Century
Borneo 1962 – 1966
Borneo (Kalimantan to the Indonesians) is the second biggest island in the world. Along its northern coast, one third of the island lay three British dependant territories – the colony of Sarawak, the Sultanate of [more…]
20th Century
Desert Fox: Erwin Rommel’s Photograph Collection
The Vietnam War started in 1955 and ended with the fall of Saigon in 1975 when the Americans left in a hurry. It has been described as the first televised war but a claim to [more…]
21st Century
Hatuwezi Ishi Hivi (We Can’t Live This Way)
Police brutality during the #RejectFinanceBill protests has shown us that while politicians can afford to sit back and wait for the 2027 general election, we the citizens of Kenya do not have that luxury. They [more…]
20th Century
Report From Kenya, 1955 – Part Eight
In 1955, at the height of the Mau Mau Rebellion, my uncle John Alldridge produced a series of reports from Kenya for the Birmingham Mail and the Manchester Evening News – Jerry F Wally’s lion [more…]
21st Century
Postcard From The Antebellum, Part Two
On Thursday, 25th July, Mrs AWS and myself struck out for Birmingham New Street. One of our Standard Premium day trips, it’s memorable – even without hindsight – by a heightened presence of the transport [more…]