Places, people or events associated with the Modern period in Britain,
Portsmouth is my hometown. When growing up there, a walk along the seafront was a frequent occurrence. It is still often on the agenda when visiting today, so that’s what this is all about. There are ships to watch coming and going on the Solent, one of Britain’s busiest and best-known waterways, with the Isle […]
Along the seafront at Portsmouth Read More »
The skeletal ruins of Coventry’s medieval cathedral of St Michael’s are a stark reminder of the destruction of an old war. Paradoxically, it and the adjacent new cathedral of which it is a part, serve as emblems of reconciliation and the quest for peace. The appearance of both buildings was conceived in one night, Thursday
Coventry’s Blitz and Cathedral Read More »
I don’t get too many invitations these days. So, when one pops onto the digital doormat it receives serious attention. The invitation in this instance was to the Chalke History Festival and it came from a nice bunch of folk collectively known as ‘Guidl’. Guidl is a new venture and was a sponsor of the
6 June 2024 is the 80th anniversary of D-Day, the ‘Day of Days’. Was it really that long ago? Growing up in the ‘60s and ‘70s, with parents who lived through the Second World War, reminders were ubiquitous and it never seemed that far away. It wasn’t, when you think about it – it is
The National Memorial Arboretum is a year-round centre of remembrance and needs to be revisited. Not only should a first visit be mandatory, but also it is one of those places that gives more each time you go. It changes with the seasons of course, but also as trees mature and new memorials are added.
National Memorial Arboretum revisited Read More »
Britain has had an affection for tea and coffee for a similar length of time, but despite (apparently) 95 million cups of coffee being drunk every day in the UK, it is ubiquitous good tea that it is famed for, rather than coffee. It is a different story just across the Channel and throughout mainland
Stowe is one of those marvellous monuments to profligacy. It is a great 17th and 18th century mansion, now a school, surrounded by an exquisite landscape that nature only had a passing hand in creating. Stowe School is a public school, and therefore private. The gardens were given to the National Trust, so privately owned,
Sometime ago, I posted an article about a nondescript memorial on a country lane in Hampshire to a Royal Air Force pilot who crashed and died nearby in 1940. It may not have been a very grand memorial, but it touched me that someone – unrelated to the young man – had taken the trouble
F/O James Tillett is still remembered Read More »
We did. A few other people came along too. Actually, we didn’t only go to London; we went to Slough. And Windsor. And London again. As the Coronation of Charles III was a moment in time, it seems appropriate to share a few inadequate photographs of this experience with you, dear reader, as well as
We went to London for the Coronation Read More »
The coronation of their Majesties The King and his Queen Consort on 6 May 2023 provides a wonderful opportunity to take a look at the institution of monarchy. Of course, the United Kingdom has had a brand new squeaky-clean monarch since 8 September 2022, when the late Queen died. That is the way with the
A very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to anyone who ventures onto the pages of A Bit About Britain – provided you have also bothered to stay and read something, of course. I am neither sufficiently organised nor inspired to write a Christmas post this year – though I can highly recommend several
Looking back on 2022 Read More »
Someone remonstrated with me the other day, saying that I could do more to promote my books. Being the sort of chap that always takes advice, I have consequently embarked upon a brazen, crass, plug of the most vulgar kind. Buy one of my books! No – buy two! If I publish another, buy that
Here is a dramatic tale – of shifting landscapes, lost settlements, abandoned military installations and wobbly legs. It features the spindly, exposed, crooked finger of Spurn Head on the East Yorkshire coast. Spurn is an enigmatic, fascinating and slightly scary place, a low-lying spit of glacial clay, sand and shingle, washed on one side by
In 2015, a rust-weathered steel spire was erected on the skyline above the City of Lincoln. It is 102 feet, more than 31 metres, high – by no coincidence equivalent to the wingspan of a Second World War Lancaster bomber. The spire is the dramatic centrepiece of The International Bomber Command Centre, which commemorates the
IBCC – Recognition, Remembrance, Reconciliation Read More »
