Thanks to a BBC-made TV series stretching from the early Sixties to the late Seventies, a phenomenon from the Second War has become memorable. The series was…
Category: Scottish history
Dr. Beeching & the British railways (1960s)
One of the greatest achievements of the Victorians took place in the home country, not abroad somewhere in the over-large Empire. A railway network second to none, not…
The twelve basic tenses in English (British or American)
Present: I work = I work hard all day Past: I worked = I worked hard all last year. Future: I will work = I will…
Normandy, Normans and the Norman Conquest
Normandy was once the home of Celtic tribes in north-western France. It was the kingdom of Clovis, founder of the Frankish empire (466 – 511). It came under…
Two proud Dukes of Buckingham (too proud perhaps?)
Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham was born around 1454 in Salisbury, Wiltshire. He was a member of the House of Lancaster, being a descendent of Edward III,…
Switzerland: where Italians, Frenchmen & Germans don’t bother with nationalism
A half-dozen of the planet’s most important countries are now infected by the nationalist mosquito. Europe (after the Second War) invented a large country called Yugoslavia…
Tory, Conservative; Whig, Liberal
The term ‘party’ for a political group has been around in Britain for centuries. The Tory Party was a political group that was spoken of in the 1680s….
These sports: where do they come from?
Spectator sports they are called, presumably because they are designed for watching by spectators. Soccer, cricket, boxing, tennis, rugby and athletics were nursed, improved and nurtured in hundreds…
Important American Moneybags: Andrew Carnegie & Henry Ford
Carnegie was born in 1835, the son of a Scots weaving hand-loom operator. The family left Scotland and emigrated to the United States of America in 1848. Young…