Category: History

The Guards Chapel

On a Sunday morning in June 1944 the Guards Chapel was hit by a flying bomb during Matins. The whole building was destroyed, except the apse, and 121 people died.

St Patrick in Soho

In London in the 18th century there was a concerted effort by rich Catholics and the Catholic Church to alleviate the poverty and misery of their less fortunate countrymen. The Benevolent Society of St Patrick (1783) and the older Irish Charitable Society (1704) are manifestations of this, (There’s a Welcome on the Mat), another is… Continue reading St Patrick in Soho

Norman Conquest

Whatever the UK electorate decides about staying in or leaving the EU, many of us in the British Isles feel a sense of identity with the Normans. Our genes, our language, our architecture, our laws can to a large extent be traced back to Norman roots.

A Fisherman’s Tale

I was born on 3rd April 1954 but I’m not fishing for a birthday card. On 2nd April 1817 the Salford Anglers’ Society was founded and they have been fishing for almost two hundred years, so save your card for them next year.

A History Lesson

“History is more or less bunk. It’s tradition. We don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present, and the only history that is worth a tinker’s damn is the history that we make today.” That’s what Henry Ford thought in 1916. Today Dr Michael Axworthy (above) disagrees.

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Wiggers

On Sunday I went to a concert at the Wigmore Hall. Wiggers works its socks off: they put on about 400 performances annually and don’t just sit back and enjoy the million pounds they get in funding from the Arts Council; they both raise money and sell tickets – hoorah!

Royal Ginger (not Prince Harry)

Sensing the onset of a cold I have been self-medicating with draughts of the King’s Ginger. The King is Edward VII, who took over the reins from and reigned after his mother, Queen Victoria.

Lords and Ladies

An attempt is being made to slow the rate at which hereditary titles become extinct; no I don’t know why either. Lord Trefgarne has introduced a Succession to Peerages Bill in the House of Lords which, if it receives Royal Assent, will allow hereditary titles to be inherited by the eldest child of either sex.

William Sansom

  I went to Maida Vale with Nicky and Nick on Saturday to deliver flyers for Zac Goldsmith. Nicky’s father is the subject of Man in Taxi. As we worked the letter boxes of NW8, Nick told me that he had been brought up in Hamilton Terrace and about his father.