South West England has two main draw-backs: it is popular and, as it’s on the west, it can suffer from wetness – particularly at its extremities. Other than that, it has pretty much everything, including mystery, prehistory, history, cuteness, grand…
Last Updated on 16th February 2020I’m not easily given to hyperbole; I’ve told you that a million times. But it is genuinely hard to think of a British town that can be quite so achingly beautiful as Oxford. Perhaps I…
Part 2 – Lorenz and legacy Enigma was only part of the Bletchley Park story. As early as 1940, listening stations began to pick up enciphered teleprinter messages. These worked in a completely different way to messages enciphered on an…
Part 1 – Enigma and Ultra This is Bletchley Park. To all intents and purposes, it’s a nondescript, somewhat ugly, large Victorian mansion and estate just north of London. But what went on at Bletchley Park was extraordinary: it changed…
Having been weaned on tales of Douglas Bader, Stamford Tuck and Guy Gibson, I get quite excited visiting places like Duxford. IWM Duxford is home to most of the Imperial War Museum’s collection of rather large exhibits – mainly aircraft. …
Last Updated on 25th June 2019A neighbour was taking a short break in Northumberland, and told me that one of the reasons she was excited about it was because, growing up, she had a picture of Grace Darling on her…
Free London is not a plea to release London from bondage, but A Bit About Britain’s attempt to explain that you can have a jolly fun time in the capital of the United Kingdom at little, or no, cost. Everybody…
Regular watchers of TV news will be familiar with the scene outside the Houses of Parliament, where journalists interview politicians on a patch of grass opposite Old Palace Yard, against a backdrop of Gothic architecture and the appropriately barbarian howls…
Last Updated on 18th March 2019For some, Lacock Abbey will always be associated with the invention of photography; for others, it is the Tudor-Gothic-Victorian house that gets the juices flowing; for me, the real pleasure was in wandering through cloisters…
Last Updated on 29th January 2019What is all the fuss about Robert Burns? Robert – Robbie or ‘Rabbie’ – Burns was a prolific poet and lyricist, who died more than 200 years ago. He is Scotland’s favourite bard, still revered…
Last Updated on 4th March 2020Who was the third Brontë sister? It’s a good question for quiz night down at the Olde Rupturede Ducke. There was Charlotte and Emily, of course – the authors of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights…
HMS Victory, flagship of Admiral Horatio Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, has been one of Portsmouth’s icons for so long, it’s easy to forget what else she represents. You could almost be forgiven for thinking she’s simply…