The past is never dead, it isn’t even past
At 3 a.m. on 6 May, 400 Allied guns ‘flamed into action’ on a 3,000-yard stretch of enemy front on both sides of the Medjez-Massicault-Tunis highway. ‘The gunners sweated as they thrust shells into the guns,’ wrote journalist John D’Arcy-Dawson. The noise...
In the fields of the Peloponnese, the image of a lone survivor stood amid hundreds of dead reveals the brutality of ancient warfare and the military values that shaped Spartan life. As the light faded, his energy ebbing with it, the Spartan soldier Othryadas felt his...
23rd April 1813 Samuel Burrows was more excited than ever. Today was going to be his day. He had held the position of Chester’s, and therefore Cheshire’s, executioner for four years. However, until this day, only a select few knew of his official duties. For...
As a welcome tonic (accompanied by measures of gin for some) to take one’s mind off the state of affairs today, the audience at the Questors Theatre in Ealing were transported back to the late eighties on the evening of Jan 8th. The venue played host to The Trembling...
The goddess Hecate plays a crucial role in my murder mystery Poetic Justice, something I did not expect when I embarked upon my research of the poet Ovid and his life in exile. It all started when I read a pamphlet from the Museum of History and Archaeology in...
We are greatly looking forward to a number of titles due to be published in 2026, but we thought we would highlight a few of particular interest to us and our readers. Stalin's Apostles: The Cambridge Five and the Making of the Soviet EmpireBy Antonia SeniorPublished...
The two dominant strains in Richard’s character – an assumption of moral superiority combined with a painstaking and conventional concept of duty – do resolve the puzzling contradictions touching on his personal code of honour. He could denounce the Treaty of...
Dame Ninette de Valois was an ever-present figure throughout my years training at the Royal Ballet School, her name repeated in ballet studios, her influence permeating every rehearsal room. I saw her only once, at a celebration of her 100th birthday at the Royal...
In the history of the British Secret Service, SIS/MI6, two of its intelligence networks have been given high acclaim and both were in Belgium. They were La Dame Blanche (the White Lady) in the First World War and the Clarence Service in the Second World War. La Dame...
On the morning of 12 September 1942, off the West African coast, the watch officer aboard U-156 spotted a plume of smoke on the horizon. Already three weeks out of Lorient, U-156 – a Type IX submarine, on its fourth war patrol – was due to join a wolfpack in the...
