Carmarthenshire Archives: the End of the Beginning?
Last Thursday, I attended a two-hour consultation meeting in Carmarthen on the proposed new record office for the county, following the closure of the previous one after the discovery of mould in the storerooms. Now, regular readers of this blog will know that I have just a little bit of history with this particular issue; […]
The Ghosts of Swarbacks Minn
My fourth and final post about the naval heritage I visited during our recent holiday in Shetland… By complete coincidence (honest!), our rented cottage looked out directly over Busta Voe, at the head of the Swarbacks Minn anchorage. During World War I, this was the base of the Tenth Cruiser Squadron, responsible for enforcing the […]
The Shetland Bus
Perhaps the most moving naval memorial in Shetland can be found on the harbour front in Scalloway, the archipelago’s one-time capital. This is to the unbelievably brave young Norwegians who lost their lives while operating the ‘Shetland bus’, the covert ‘shuttle service’ of fishing craft and, later, submarine chasers, which operated between Shetland and Norway […]
The Submarine and the Bus Stop
Number two in my short series of posts based on last week’s holiday in Shetland… Unst is an absolute must for visitors. As Britain’s most northerly inhabited island, it racks up the superlatives literally every few hundred yards, the further north you go – the most northerly roads, the most northerly shop (splendidly named ‘The […]
The Hollanders’ Graves
Last week, we had a terrific holiday in the sun-drenched beach resorts of… Shetland. OK, it’s a fair cop, the temperatures never reached double figures in the week we were there, and were driven down further by the constant northerly wind (reaching gale force at times, e.g. on our return ferry voyage to Aberdeen). But […]
History Conference Bingo
Mayday! Time for something a little offbeat and lighthearted, aimed at all those of you who have ever attended, or are likely to attend, history conferences – your essential companion to pass the time during the more boring papers and plenary sessions. Enjoy! (On holiday next week, so not certain if I’ll be able to […]
When Two Tribes go to…Conferences
To start with this week, some long-awaited and exciting news – The Rage of Fortune, the prequel to the Quinton series, has just been published as an e-book by Endeavour Press, and is available from the various Amazon Kindle stores! I’ve mentioned this a number of times in this blog (notably here and here), so won’t […]
A Falklands War – 35 Years On
Still in Easter holiday mode, so no completely new post this week. But as it’s currently the 35th anniversary of the Falklands War, I thought I’d re-blog this post from the very early days of this site – five years ago, to be exact, at the time of the thirtieth anniversary. I’ve not changed the […]
Eggs and Bacon, Belly Squeaks, and Polly Infamous – Revisited!
Easter holiday mode at the moment, so for the next couple of weeks I’m going to re-blog some posts from the very early days of this site, which were originally seen by the relatively small number of hardy souls who, back then, managed to locate this far-flung recess of the Interweb. This one is on […]
Ancient Wreck
To Wales for the weekend for my ‘big birthday’ (clue: I won’t see my twenties again – or several other decades, either). While there, we went for a bracing walk along Cefn Sidan beach, one of the relatively lesser known treasures of the Welsh coastline. By any measure, the beach is stunning in its own […]
