The past is never dead, it isn’t even past
Holocaust Memorial Day 2021 During the Holocaust, Jewish partisan groups and resistance organisations launched attacks, created underground networks, led rescue missions and sabotage operations, and documented their experiences at grave risk. This is no secret -...
When England played Germany on 10th November, 2017 at Wembley, it seemed as though the football was incidental to the virtue signalling. Not only were the two teams sporting poppy armbands but there were poppies on sale, poppy T-shirts given away, poppy wreaths laid,...
Who Dares Lies first appeared in The Spectator. Sir Christopher Lee, who died in 2015 aged 93, knew how to play a part. One of the consummate actors of his generation, whose career spanned nearly seven decades, his versatility on stage and screen was legendary. At...
Machiavelli's Shirt ‘And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?’ W B Yeats, The Second Coming. ‘How could I possibly tell you what the sermon was about? You know that I never listen to such things.’ Machiavelli, in a...
Pop quiz. Who proclaimed, "all Europe is my home"? Andrew Adonis? Nick Clegg? Terry Christian? It was Oswald Mosley. The British electorate rejected Mosley, as it did the European Union. And, unlike parts of our political establishment, civil service, and media, the...
There is an oft told story of an elderly Garrick member surveying the Club’s notice board. On spotting the summer reciprocal hospitality list he saw that the Guards Club had joined the usual list of clubs whose members the Garrick welcomed over the holidays. “Oh,...
On 21st October 1805, William Holburne, one of Bath’s greatest benefactors, was an eleven-year old Midshipman on board HMS Orion, which was about to join battle with the French Fleet off Cape Trafalgar. As Holburne’s ship closed with the enemy battleship, Intrepide,...
Marengo 's Hooves. In its long history, the Horse Guards building has been the venue for many historical events including, most recently, one on the afternoon of Saturday 24th September 2016. The backstory of this latest event starts on the night of 24th August, 1799,...
That famous photograph is lodged in all our memories – Christine Keeler naked, astride a concealing chair. And perhaps we all have our own background with this story. Ok, my husband Derek Malcolm’s memories are a bit more direct than most. As a young man on the...
What first attracted you to the period or periods you work in? Action Man, the toy. When I was about six I got a Long Range Desert Group Action Man, and it was my pride and joy. It started my obsession with World War Two special forces, so when I actually got to meet...
