19th Century
Nostalgia Album, Part Four
With there being only 11 years between them both my grandfather, Elihu, and his nephew, John Jr, joined up for the Second War. Last time we looked at my grandfather’s service in the RAOC and [more…]
History
20th Century
My Legends of Pop Music – Part Thirty-Three – The Doobie Brothers
My Legends of Pop Music – Part Thirty-Three – The Doobie Brothers If get this right, there will be many cover versions by future bands. I shall try and link live versions if they exist [more…]
20th Century
The Revolution in Zanzibar
I had probably already heard of the Zanzibar Revolution, perhaps I had read that Freddy Mercury arrived in the United Kingdom as a result of his family having fled the violence that took place there [more…]
20th Century
Memories of My Early Childhood
I was born in 1950 and I have very happy memories of my early years. I was lucky I guess. We lived in a four-bedroom semi-detached house in Church End, Finchley with decent sized front, [more…]
Biography
Herodotus and the Histories – Part One
Having finally fulfilled a previous and somewhat rash promise to write about Thucydides and his account of the Peloponnesian War, I thought it about time I write about his forerunner, Herodotus of Halicarnassus, who is [more…]
20th Century
Nostalgia Album, Part Three
The above photograph appears in our family Nostalgia Album captioned “Mauretania Southampton 1939”. Although every Big Boy’s Big Book of Big Ships says something different, the photograph, languishing in the Worth-Saying family album for 83 [more…]
20th Century
My Legends of Pop Music – Part Thirty-Two – The Small Faces
If get this right, there will be many cover versions by future bands. I shall try and link live versions if they exist from the tellybox or a film, the sound quality may not be [more…]
20th Century
The Desert War – March 1942
We reach March 1942 and again, there is not much happening on the ground. It all seems to have ground to a halt and once more Churchill is not amused. The Royal Navy is still [more…]
Engineering
Three Gyroscopes – Part 4
Introduction As a child I loved playing about with magnets – I still do. They can move heavy objects – such as lifting cars at a scrap yard. They can also move light (-weight!) objects [more…]