Arts
Reading – A Love Story: The Staff 1977-1982
In my last piece I realised there was so much material about my high school days that it couldn’t possibly fit into one article. This is not about reading but the staff at my high [more…]
Books
Arts
Reading – A Love Story: I Won’t Back Down 1975-76
Emigrating to Australia was a very big deal indeed. I hadn’t been further than places like Land’s End, Pembroke and New Brighton – certainly not out of the UK. The last few weeks were a [more…]
Arts
Reading – A Love Story: Into the Great Wide Open 1977-1982
I started high school in early 1977. A very different place. You went from being a 12 year old at the top of the food chain to some insignificant squit. There were people with pubic [more…]
Arts
Reading – A Love Story: Learning to Fly Part 3 1973-75
In my final year of infants school the new Middle School was being built just across the playing field. We all watched the construction taking place knowing that this would be our destination after the [more…]
20th Century
Book review: Fearless on Everest, by Julie Summers
‘Sandy Irvine sat outside his tent, shoulders hunched, his hat pulled down over his ears, his scarf shielding his badly sunburned face. His skin had been severely blistered by the sun, and the wind on [more…]
Biography
Review: Shaman of the Radical Right: The life and mind of Jonathan Bowden
Bowden was born in 1962 and died in March 2012 from a heart attack. I came across Jonathan Bowden’s work sometime in 2020. It was on YouTube and featured a small portly gentleman covering what [more…]
Arts
Reading – A Love Story: Learning to Fly 1970-73 Part 2
After the first few months of getting to grips with the reading at a low level the classroom books on offer while reasonably entertaining were not really enough for me and so I turned to [more…]
Arts
Reading – A Love Story: Learning to Fly 1970-71 Part 1
One of the most endearing traits of Western society is what we do in our spare time. The variety is enormous ( I’ll write more about this in future) – some are individual and some [more…]
Book Review
Book Review: Minifigure Monarchs: A History of Great Brits in little bricks
Written by Andrew Redfern, and launched as a Kickstarter project in July 2025, Minifigure Monarchs was successfully funded within 24 hours. At 336 pages this hardback was a definite addition to my Christmas list! It’s [more…]