Every Christmas growing up my family received a greeting card from the Stingl family. I knew that my grandmother, mother, and aunt had known Fritz Stingl in the 1930s. He was Czech and he had arrived at Croydon airport as a refugee and been turned back even though they were at the barrier waiting to sponsor him. And then there…
The Background One evening in the spring of 1919 a soldier in his uniform appeared at the front door of 115, Strathyre Avenue, Norbury, London. Frances Sims knew who it was immediately. It was her husband – Lance Corporal Frank Herbert Sims, known as Bert. The only problem was that Lance Corporal Sims had died at Taranto, Italy in January. …
1940 has been well served by blockbuster movies this past year. Last summer there was Dunkirk as legendary saga and then this winter Darkest Hour focussed on the Westminster drama of the political backdrop. Dunkirk tells the story of the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force by following what happens to some representative figures – soldiers trying to get off the beach; a…
Ninety years since the end of the First World War. Passengers at Paddington station on Armistice Day, 11 November 1919. stopped for two minutes silence to remember those who never returned. Most of the men have taken their hats off out of respect. Over 25,000 Great Western Railway workers were killed in the war. Railway companies commemorated the end of…