WW2
Operation Pied Piper: What were they thinking?
In Hamelin in Lower Saxony. there's an inscription on a wooden beam on the side of the Rattenfangerhaus (rat catcher's…
Get the vaccine. Climb a drainpipe
As is ever the case, I found these images on the IWM site while actually looking for something else. They…
Where does Good Enough Come from?
It was Donald Winnicott, of course, who coined the phrase good-enough in connection with parenting. He first introduced the term…
Secret Agent, Mother, Saboteur, Bomb-maker, Spy Chief, Novelist, Housewife
As of last week, the only thing I knew about Agnes Smedley was that The Feminist Press had reissued her…
Gertrude Stein: Collage and Code
While T.S.Eliot was skulking about in green face powder, Gertrude Stein was communing with Cubists and inventing linguistic collage. And…
Mental Health, Leadership and the Plan for That
They say the war is over. But water still Comes bloody from the taps. from 'Redeployment,' Howard Nemerov In April…
Coastal Command
My uncle Lawrence Holford was killed by a Bristol Beaufighter. Maybe two. My father worshipped his older brother Laurie, and…
Jeanne Mammen In Ruins and Recovery
Before the Nazis took power in 1933 Jeanne Mammen earned her living as a commercial artist, selling her work to…
About Isms He was Never Wrong: George Orwell at the Café Royal
George Orwell had an interesting chance encounter with a blasé conspiracy theorist at the Café Royal in 1940. (See left). The young…
Much Ado About Food: Kate Atkinson and Elizabeth David
Novelists and film makers often struggle to find the right period details to anchor their work in a particular era.…
Much Ado About Deception and Delusion: Kate Atkinson’s Transcription and London 1940
The sandwich was no comfort, it was a pale limp thing a long way from the déjeuner sur l'herbe of her…
Falling Wall
I began this post in 2017. The original focus was Louis MacNeice's's poem "Brother Fire". MacNeice was a fire-watcher during…
Bitter Strawberries
Farm work is one of the best jobs for getting to know people as they really are. The…
Saplings
I'm not giving anything away by quoting the deep irony of the last lines of Saplings: Turns you over, don’t…
Under the Radar: The Hedge Hoppers and the Hardest Day
After early mist the morning of Sunday August 18 1940 was bright with clear skies. It came to be known…