The past is never dead, it isn’t even past
It was 14 April 1912. Charles Joughin had finally fallen asleep after a hard day’s work in the ship’s kitchens. Suddenly, he was woken by a tremendous jolt. He felt the vessel shudder violently beneath him. Then, after a momentary pause, it continued moving forward....
We start during the 1970s, as the independent minded Nina finds herself falling for a man who she knows she cannot have a life with. Leo has his own familial demons to contend with, whilst Nina has secrets of which Leo can never be party to. Nina’s life is snatched...
The Princess of Thebes was wheeled on a gurney into the laboratory. Peta Raven observed the porters’ careful progression through the doorway and up to the table. No corpse should be, or ever was, treated negligently in this place but custody of the princess invoked an...
I would like to start by asking a question. What triggered your journey with Titanic? Was it the the 1956 black and white film A Night To Remember or the discovery of the Titanic in 1985 Was it the James Cameron film Titanic in 1997 maybe a Titanic exhibition or maybe...
On a Saturday in 2012, journalist Simon Kuper had the highly sought-after opportunity to interview the last surviving traitor of the Cold War, George Blake, in his dacha (home) outside Moscow. As it turned out, Kuper is believed to have been the last Western...
As a 6-year-old at the time, my memory of the Falklands War is vague and seen through the prism of national newspaper headlines and the 6 o’clock news. With my father in the army, I was all for The Sun’s portrayal of the British Army as supermen, and it seemed a fait...
Capital of Spies For anyone who lived in West Berlin during the sixties, seventies or eighties, the very mention of the great city’s name on a news bulletin brought a frisson of excitement with memories of Russian checkpoints, the Wall and constant flow of spy stories...
Why is it so easy to hate and difficult to love? When societies fracture into warring tribes, we demonise those who oppose us. We tear down our statues, forgetting that what begins with the destruction of statues, often leads to the killing of people. The world is in...
Bernd von Kostka, Berlin was the epicentre of the Cold War, with multiple clandestine agencies operating there. Many operations took place in the decades up to the fall of the wall, but which were the most successful? Well, usually the most successful operations are...
SAS Sea King Down Mark ‘Splash’ Aston’s reputation went before him at the Army’s reconnaissance school where I first met him in 1990, when he worked there as the divisional sergeant major. All the recce students who passed under his instruction knew something of the...
