Month: June 2020

Old Palace Lane

The walk upstream to Richmond is back on Bertie’s and my agenda. Yesterday we completed it in two hours, thirty-five minutes; creditable considering Bertie had to play with a canine chum, board a houseboat (Avanti), and join a picnic.

Uncle George Remembers XIII

“Coronation committees of several sorts followed one another in quick succession in 1952 and 1953, and one of the most important of them was the Coronation Joint Executive Committee.

Something Fresh

As it’s Sunday we will do Bible study. The Gutenberg Bible, as you know, was one of the earliest books to be  “mass” printed using moveable, metal type. Fewer than 200 copies ran off Gutenberg’s press at Mainz in the mid 15th century; one uxorious frog could do better in the tadpole department, and as… Continue reading Something Fresh

Lock-Down at Blandings

I confess I haven’t found living under lock-down a great hardship. Others, with piles in the country, you know what I mean, have taken the opportunity to improve their curtilages and undertake neglected maintenence. How has Lord Emsworth adapted to the regime?

Pure Gold

  “Is this a book that you would even wish your wife or your servants to read?” (Mervyn Griffith-Jones, prosecuting Penguin under the Obscene Publications Act, 1959). I have seldom looked forward to a book so much. Further details when I have read it. Meanwhile, on another note, I spent an hour before lunch yesterday… Continue reading Pure Gold

HMS Tyne, March 1957

In 1956 Patrick Nairne was “head of the Middle Eastern and international law section of what was, rather quaintly, known as Military Branch of the Admiralty secretariat“. He found himself “though relatively junior, in a front-line administrative post during the Suez affair”.

Published
Categorised as History

Uncle George Remembers XII

The apotheosis of Uncle George’s career at the College of Arms was Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation but please be patient while he explains about a pain in the neck.

The Coincidence of Novembers

As it’s Sunday let’s start with an extract from a Sermon given by Patrick Nairne at the University Church of St Mary the Virgin, Oxford, on 30th October 1983.