Places, people or events associated with the Modern period in Britain,
There’s a story behind every garden. To avoid disappointment, I have to tell you right away that Tintinhull’s is frustratingly elusive. Let’s start with the basics. Tintinhull is a small village in Somerset, not far from Yeovil, with roots dating back to at least Saxon times. It sits on the route of the Fosse Way, […]
The recent background to our consumer society The Britons that dusted themselves down and emerged on the winning side in 1945 were delirious with joy and relief that it was all over. There was a terrible human price to pay, of course. And if the Britain of those days seems a little drab to more
Shop till you drop – Britain since 1945 Read More »
Britain’s role in the worst conflict the world has known, so far The Second World War was the most violent and globally shattering event in history. When it finally ended, at least 60 million people lay dead; some estimates are as high as 79 million. It is part of the tragedy that we’ll never know
Britain and the Second World War 1939-45 Read More »
The failure of appeasement This is a question often asked, but it’s academic – rather like saying, “If I’d left the house earlier, I wouldn’t have got caught in the rain.” Adolf Hitler’s Nazi party came to power in Germany in 1933 on a programme of public works, employment and restoring both national and personal
Could Britain have avoided war in 1939? Read More »
Inter-war interlude The writer and journalist Andrew Marr points out that, unlike other eras in the story of Britain, we have no name for the period between the first and second world wars. It’s as though it’s a kind of interlude sandwiched between two earth-shattering events during which people were recovering from one whilst waiting
Britain in the 1920s and ’30s Read More »
The consequences of the First World War are still with us The First World War transformed the world forever. The conflict itself resonated through the remainder of the 20th century and set events in motion that have informed the world we live in today. Some of the consequences are obvious – the map of the
The legacy of 1914-1918 Read More »
A summary of the conflict and Britain’s part in it The 1914-18 war was a global conflict. British forces, and those of her Imperial Dominions – particularly Australia, New Zealand, Canada, India and South Africa – fought in Africa, Italy, the Middle East, Salonica (Greece) and Gallipoli (Turkey), as well as on the Western Front
Britain and the First World War Read More »
Or – how Europe went mad The First World War, ‘Great War’ or ‘War to end all wars’, was the largest conflict on the planet until the Second World War twenty years’ later. It lasted a little over four years and killed in the region of 16.5 million people, almost half of them civilians. That
How did the First World War happen? Read More »
Britain, the global superpower On 22 June 1897, Queen Victoria returned from her Diamond Jubilee parade in London having had a wonderful day. Loyal crowds lined the streets to see their monarch, a tiny plump old lady clad in black, pass from Buckingham Palace, through Trafalgar Square, The Strand, Fleet Street and up Ludgate Hill to
The Empire on which the sun never set Read More »
How we got to exercise our franchise People can be hopelessly optimistic, but are perhaps increasingly fairly cynical, about Parliament and politicians. However, things could be a lot worse – and of course there’s nothing new about incompetent, or even dodgy, politicians. In 18th and early 19th century Britain, Parliament was particularly corrupt and unrepresentative.
How Britain got the vote Read More »
I wonder how many pints of ale have been supped here? Let me see: if just twenty people drank a modest 4 pints every night, that would be, er, 29,200 pints a year – 2,920,000 for every century. But the revenue generated by that amount of beer would not be enough to make the place
The George Inn at Borough Read More »
We travelled to Bateman’s, Rudyard Kipling’s Sussex home for 34 years, through the impossibly pretty village of Burwash, all whitewash and weatherboard. You reach the house down what Kipling described as “an enlarged rabbit-hole of a lane” to arrive in what is now a car park. I wondered how it had all looked when the
