20th Century
Postcard From Innsbruck
Zurück in den Tag Am I allowed to say that back in the day I loved Austria? Yes, it was too expensive, yes it was full of unrepentant Nazis, and yes the whole place was [more…]
Photography
20th Century
Postcard From West Germany
Donaueschingen Strict privacy laws and the German people’s well-practiced challenges to any risk posed to that privacy means that Street View isn’t available in the Federal Republic. Identifying the locations of old photographs, in this [more…]
20th Century
Deluge at Lynmouth
Over breakfast on the morning of Friday, August 15th 1952, readers of the letters page of the Ilfracombe Chronicle and North Devon News may have noticed the following correspondence from a Mr Cuthbert Burgoyne of [more…]
20th Century
Nostalia Album, Heading Home
Malaga to Motril and Beyond Having made an heroic 1952 journey from Carlisle to Gibraltar in a Ford 8 in order to visit Aunt Lil, Uncle Rob and cousin Anne, my father and grandparents set [more…]
20th Century
Lake District Memories
On Christmas Morning 2021 I was taken by ambulance to hospital suffering from a clot on the lung brought on by Covid (Covid Pneumonitis). It was to be the beginning of ten days there, most [more…]
20th Century
Press Photographer, Part Two
Another chapter from “Special Assignment” by my uncle John Alldridge (published in 1960 and now long out of print) In almost every great news story of recent times Luck has been the deciding factor. You [more…]
20th Century
Press Photographer, Part One
Another chapter from “Special Assignment” by my uncle John Alldridge (published in 1960 and now long out of print) Halfway over Putney Bridge the No 14 bus jolted to a halt. Behind it the rush-hour [more…]
20th Century
Nostalgia Album, Part Eight
After last week’s Nostalgia Album sadness at hearing great aunt Ernestine lost her husband in the First War, her son in the Second War and spent much of her life in the Lancaster County Mental [more…]
Hobbies
My Life in a Virtual Bookcase
“If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need” Marcus Tullius Cicero Having recently downsized, I no longer have room for a permanent display of the books and other items that [more…]