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Brilliant trail-blazer of expressionism, Gabriele Münter: Heard of her? by...
The picturesque in modern MurnauIn the summer, on our way from Munich to the mountains, we visited Murnau, a place I have long wanted to go to. It's where the Blue Rider school of expressionism found...
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All the Knowledge of the World! By Elizabeth Chadwick.
A few years ago I happened to pick up an old leather-bound dictionary at a jumble sale. Mainly it was because I had a new dictionary in my study but with two sons at secondary school, another one...
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Glenelg in the Scottish Highlands by Miranda Miller
I’ve just come back from visiting friends in this remote Highland community. As you can see from this sign, Glenelg really is twinned with Glenelg on Mars. NASA's roving robotic laboratory,...
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An almost forgotten Greek island, by Carol Drinkwater
Beyond this Greek islet, you can see TurkeyEarlier this year my husband, Michel, was invited to be on the jury of a small documentary film festival....
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Tamara Karsavina: Stravinsky's First Firebird by Janie Hampton
Tamara Karsavina in the studio of Wilhelm-Alfred Eberlin.His self portrait is on the shelf, 1910.This is the story of a British diplomat and a Russian prima ballerina caught up in the October 1917...
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The Remarkable Lady Nithsdale
by Lynne BentonTraquair House, in the Scottish Borders, is the oldest inhabited House in Scotland. It dates back to 1107, and although it was originally built as a hunting lodge for Scottish kings and...
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Women of the Revolution by Alan Gibbons
Our guest for October is History Boy Alan Gibbons. October 2017 is a significant date in modern history and Alan has found a way of showing the role of women at that momentous time.Photo credit: Robbie...
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Cabinet of Curiosities: Cat O’Lantern (not by) Charlotte Wightwick
Happy Halloween! I have to admit that Halloween always takes me slightly by surprise, although why this should be, I don’t know given that the shops are full of plastic ghouls, fake cobwebs and tiny...
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October Competition
To win a copy of Alan Gibbons' YA novel about women in the Russian revolution, just answer the question below in the Comments section.Then send a copy of your answer to...
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"Phone for the fish knives, Norman" by Mary Hoffman
I am a member of the forum Gransnet (think Mumsnet + 25 years) and far and away the most popular post recently has been "What kitchen gadget could you not do without?" Everyone had one and was keen to...
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Pictures of the Past
I get to talk about history a lot. One of my favourite moments is when people show their emotions about the past. So many of us care about a period or a moment and that passion comes out in...
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The Ghost: A Cultural History – A Review by Anna Mazzola
‘The English have been haunted too long for their own good,’declared the cover blurb for the 1963 compendium The Stately Ghosts of England. ‘We have become blasé,’ it continued. ‘We shoulder our way...
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Cairnholy and Wayland's Smithy: Neolithic connections
Here is the massive, and massively impressive, neolithic chambered long barrow of Wayland's Smithy, a step and a stride off the prehistoric track called the Ridgeway, near Uffington in Oxfordshire. The...
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Tiny Beauties by Joan Lennon
I remember seeing them first in the old Chambers Street Museum in Edinburgh, before its transformation into the National Museum of Scotland. Then they were tucked into an old-fashioned display case in...
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Dateslexia by Sheena Wilkinson
Molesworth, as any fule kno, was cynical about history, which ‘started badly and hav been getting steadily worse.’ And Arnold Toynbee (or Henry Ford, or possibly lots of people) said that history was...
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Jack Geras 1912-2013 by Adèle Geras
Because November was his birth month, (he was born on November 14th, 1912); because his life was bound up with Russia and its history; because I have just met up with relations I never knew I had (see...
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'Cat's Heads and Yowlers' by Karen Maitland
A Humber Sloop, the 'Harry' from Barton on the HumberA few years ago, I had the privilege of editing the autobiography of an elderly gentleman who had grown up on the banks of the Humber estuary on the...
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Tony Soprano's Naples by Caroline Lawrence
A few years ago, my husband and I visited Naples properly for the first time. On previous visits to Pompeii and Herculaneum everybody warned us to avoid Naples like the plague. They spoke of gangs of...
View ArticleThoughts of a Gothic nature - Michelle Lovric
One of my poems has just been awarded a ‘Highly Commended’ in the Bridport Prize. Judge Lemn Sissay, kindly wrote of my ‘Niece comes out of the attic’: ‘I was gripped by the gothic in this poem. And...
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Churchill's secret army - a visit to Coleshill
In October I went on a guided walk put on by the National Trust at Coleshill in Oxfordshire. The house itself no longer exists, but during the Second World War, Coleshill was the top-secret General...
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