Sword of Bone

Anthony Rhodes was born in 1916. He went to Rugby and the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. The army sent him to Trinity College, Cambridge to study Mechanical Engineering. He graduated in 1939 just in time to join the Royal Engineers and serve in France as part of the British Expeditionary Force.

Macaroni Cheese

If there is a ready-made supermarket Macaroni Cheese that is any good I haven’t found it. I read The Greasy Spoon, Luke Honey’s eclectic blog on matters pertaining to food and culinary history, and last month he posted about the perfect Macaroni Cheese receipt.

Nature Notes

The soft water, clean air, quietness and lack of light pollution in Yorkshire was good for my skin and I slept better. One lunchtime it was too hot to eat outside; unusual in Swaledale and the farmers were out in force tedding, windrowing and baling; making hay while the sun shone.

Cyril Nicholas Henty-Dodd

My uncle, christened Henry, was always called Henty; my friends are the Dodds. How did they become intertwined? Well, we must look back to the 1960s when I had crushes on Illya Kuryakin (Man From U.N.C.L.E.) and Simon Dee. I gave the latter top billing a while back in a post about The Italian Job, in… Continue reading Cyril Nicholas Henty-Dodd

High Pint

Tan Hill is only about four miles due north. It is a stiff two hour climb across marshy moorland made boggier by the path being on the Pennine Way but luckily it was what passes for a perfect Summer day up here.

Mucking about in Muker

I’m grateful to Ned York both for his slice of Stonington history and for giving me a day off yesterday. But now I’m a bit behind.

The Battle of Stonington

You are waking up and thinking only three days until the Grouse shooting opens, but 9th August is a significant anniversary and guest blogger, Edward (Ned) York returns to inform us of something not routinely on the History syllabus this side of the pond.  

Wodehouse in Swaledale

After dicing with death for almost five hours on the M1 it was good to change down a couple of gears and drive up the narrow, winding road to Swaledale and Keld. The cottage is old-fashioned with thick stone walls, a small stone-flagged kitchen and so on.

Swaledale

Today I’m storming up the M1 with Robert to Swaledale in Yorkshire. Specifically to Keld, the village where Rupert Hart-Davis had so many happy holidays with his mistress. They moved there eventually when he retired and was able to marry her.

Mr Kidson

There is much good stuff in The Enigma of Kidson and rather a weepy end, as so often with biographies of mortals.