Arts
Escape Of The Ransomed Princess
You’ll have to take this with a sprinkling of salt — or several fistfuls if you’re the sort who needs receipts for everything. To be frank, I don’t much care if you believe me or [more…]
Mystery
20th Century
Return To The Jernbanemysterium, Part Three
Let’s cut to the quick and get down to brass tacks. Or rather cut to a railway line on the icy wastes of central Norway and investigate a strange trackside anomaly only visible to sharp-eyed [more…]
20th Century
Return To The Jernbanemysterium, Part Two
Did we ever get to Lille? Those who know, know. Yes, we did, at about episode 70 of this humble racenteur’s hitty-missy Postcard of the same name that was once a staple of Saturday evening [more…]
20th Century
Return To The Jernbanemysterium
A phrase lingers in the mind. In passing, Mr. DH — my colleague, a fellow Puffin to us all, and master of that mysterious gift known as the turn of phrase — once summed up [more…]
19th Century
Enemies Within: Mouchard!
Autumn 1899, just weeks before the turn of a new century, saw two men released from Pentonville Prison on London’s Caledonian Road. Jailed seven years previously following an anarchist plot in Walsall, some continued to [more…]
19th Century
Enemies Within: Anarchy!
Only the nieve might think the nighttime streets of 1894 Soho, a den of immigrants and nere-do-goods, were not already alive with talk of the events of the previous chilly February afternoon. Passers-by investigating an [more…]
19th Century
Enemies Within: Rendezvous on Windmill Street
Ruffians, alone or in groups of two or three, descend from different directions along gloomy London streets on a sharp winter’s weekday night in February 1894. Amongst them is a figure in a top hat [more…]
19th Century
Enemies Within: A Curious Incident at The Observatory
On a crisp February afternoon on a non-descript Thursday in 1894, tram conductor Mr William Smith issued a through ticket from Westminster Bridge to Greenwich. On entering the horse-drawn tram, the passenger concerned wore a [more…]
20th Century
A Ukrainian Enigma
I have an original photograph bought as part of a “bundle” from a militaria seller whose business model is to put together sets of documents, photographs and ephemera that appear to be vaguely related so [more…]