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January Floods by Maggie Brookes
On Boxing Day it was 20 years since the terrible tsunami in the Indian ocean. Remembering our shock on hearing about that disaster, which killed 230,000 people, started me thinking about floods which...
View ArticleRethinking history with the help of K-drama
I started watching K-drama because I realised that, when I watched US, UK, or Australian television or read most books, I sympathised with the hero. This was not because I had anything in common with...
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The Lesser Key of Solomon ... by Susan Stokes-Chapman
During the 18th century, Europe witnessed a growing fascination with the occult, fuelled by a mix of Renaissance magic, medieval mysticism, and Enlightenment-era curiosity. Among the most infamous...
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Tom Lehrer is Still Alive - Joan Lennon
Tom Lehrer in 1960 (wiki commons)We live in insane times. And the Cold War was an insane time. And so I guess it's not surprising I've been thinking a lot about what it was like growing up during that...
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A Broch Blog by Susan Price
The broch of Mousa: by kind permission of David Simpson.Mousa is a small island off the coast of mainland Shetland with a Norse name. The 'a' at the end, as in many British place-names, means...
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All Women's History Matters by Janet Few
Here on the History Girls’ website you will read posts about women’s history, posts about the history of women and sometimes, accounts of the lives of individual women. If you are a woman reading...
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'A Happy Accident of War' by Karen Maitland
Daffodils in the hedgerow in Tamar ValleyPhoto:Tony Atkin‘Daffy-down-dilly is new come to town, with a yellow petticoat, and a green gown.’A traditional nursery rhyme recorded in Songs for the Nursery,...
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Medieval Women (and a few men) by Mary Hoffman
The Middle Ages are having a bit of a moment, at least in the UK. This is a boon for me, as I am writing a "Plantagenet novel" covering the rough half century from 1352 to 1403. In January, I went to...
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A taste of Homer, Virgil and Ovid by Caroline K. Mackenzie
Five years ago, almost to the day, in March 2020, the pandemic had taken hold and daily life as we knew it was turned upside down. Everyone scrambled to find ways of keeping in touch, since meeting up...
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Spitfire Women by Rebecca Alexander
At the start of the second world war, the government realised that the Royal Air Force (RAF) would play a pivotal role in defending Britain. The German air force, the Luftwaffe, had been devastatingly...
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The Fake Gestapo Cell in London in WW2
by Deborah SwiftDuring WW2 the government did its best to suppress the British Union of Fascists (BUF), but MI5’s effort to prevent fascist activities was hampered by the government’s advisory...
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Japan’s Jazz Age: Flappers and Feminists ~ by Lesley Downer
‘In the beginning, woman was the sun.’ Hiratsuka RaichōMoga, pictured in Mainichi shimbun ‘Modern gals’If you had visited Tokyo in the 1910s and 1920s, you would have met Japanese women stepping out...
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The Golden Hour by Kate Lord Brown
Reviewed by Stephanie WilliamsI must have been about thirteen when my imagination was first captured by Akhenaten, the legendary pharaoh who brought the revolutionary idea of one god to Egypt in the...
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Hannah More, by Sue Purkiss
Twelve or so years ago, I started a creative writing class in Cheddar, where I live. I tried out several venues, one of which was a house owned by the Parish Council, named Hannah More Cottage. It's a...
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The Tower Suffragette by Penny Dolan
Inside Harrogate Library, at the start of March,a new display was put up, decorated with small flags and badges, and arranged by the Local Studies group. As I studied the labels, printed images and...
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The 'Auld Alliance' by Margaret Skea
Some years ago the BBC ran an advert for the 6 Nations Rugby tournament which was pulled following some complaints, and then proceeded to go viral! The punchline was - ‘It’s not who you want to win,...
View ArticleWho do You Think You Are - on the wrong side of the street By L.J. Trafford
Last Christmas I brought my Mum one of those ancestry DNA kits with the hope that it would reveal hitherto unknown mysteries about her/my lineage and thus provide me with a ready-made topic for a...
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The Many Faces of Anne Boleyn.
Anne Boleyn – home-wrecker, whore, wicked stepmother, scheming bitch, witch, the woman responsible for encouraging the early years of the English reformation – or simply a woman whose fate was...
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Garbo and the Swedish Queen by Elisabeth Storrs
The life of Greta Garbo, the Swedish-American actress, is a rags to riches story. Born in Stockholm in 1905 as Greta Gustafsson, she earned her living as a ‘lather girl’ in a barber shop before...
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Birds of Blackfriars - Michelle Lovric
I love birds and have lived within chirping distance of Blackfriars Bridge for two decades. Yet I only quite recently realized that it’s a twitcher’s paradise. From the road, you’d never suspect it....
View ArticleThis week's post
The History Girls regret there is no new post this week, due to illness. Normal service will be resumed next Friday, 13th June.
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The Whalebone Theatre, by Joanna Quinn - Sue Purkiss
I first read The Whalebone Theatre a couple of years ago. Lots of people had enjoyed it, and I did too, but it probably suffered a bit from something akin to 'tall poppy syndrome': do you know what I...
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My Life as a Historical Novel by Miranda Miller
This is the cover of my ninth novel, When I Was, which has just been published by Barbican Press. I wrote this novel about growing up in London in the 1950s from memory. Strangely, I found myself...
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Born Out of Wedlock, by Carol Drinkwater
I am a week away from publication of my latest novel, ONE SUMMER IN PROVENCE. 3rd July 2025. It is always an exciting as well as a nerve-racking time. A broad synopsis of what the novel is about: a...
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The Streets of St Andrews by V.E.H. Masters
St Andrews in Scotland is known worldwide as the home of golf as well as for its famous university where Prince William met Catherine – but it's also a town with a lot of history.My first historical...
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