My very first meeting with a Helter Skelter was one day, aged about 7, in Arbroath, Scotland when Dad I went to the local Funfair on our own. I so peed him off. Twice. Once on the Helter Skelter when I wouldn’t stop running up, sliding down on a hessian sack. Then when we did… Read More Helter Skelter
Mad hour here. Freakishly strong winds for about half an hour. A loud, unmistakeable noise. Then mass panic. Three kids, one dog and I went on a fallen tree hunt. OK. I could take this one personally after going on and on about Harry Price, Borley Rectory and Spiritism. We were working on Sod’s Law… Read More Strange Phenomena : East/West/Eurus vs Zephyr
Snow White et al produced a mind-field of stuff that I could not afford to forget. So I picked up a pen and a notebook and pages later I realised that more time was needed. I’ve NEVER trusted a computer. EVERYTHING important in my life is hand-written and filed…….somewhere! A British Easter Sunday Dinner is… Read More REWIND: Don’t You (Forget About Me)
Chopsticks, to me, means this… But when you are a guest amongst a Hong Kong family in a posh restaurant in Hong Kong – things get awkward. The teenage son of my hostess, bless his heart, did everything in his power to teach me how to use chopsticks. In the end they asked for a… Read More Chopsticks – My Waterloo
The US of A goes nuts for St Paddy’s Day. M’eh. How many of them actually lived through The Conflict? I did. Twice. Once as a serving HM.Forces police person. Once as a wife and mother…my baby son and I were so effing close to a bomb explosion in Lisburn that it still gives me… Read More Dál Riata: The Powerful Gaelic Kingdom of Scotland and Ireland
I swear to God that we are now in a full on Zombie Apocalypse that’s getting worse every day. OK. Had to check with Himself on a very old memory of him being my oppo, mag changer, lying there beside me as we shot LMG’s on the range. This was before we became more than… Read More Back With the Zombies
When you grow up with a BFF whose mother is White Jamaican and said mother went to party a party as a young woman, sat down next to a man with dreadlocks and asked said man what he did for a living. And that dreadlocked man answered, “A little music.” You begin to understand. Zion.… Read More BOB MARLEY
Way back when my parents first met, Mum was 19 and Dad was 20. She was in the WRENS (Women’s Royal Navy Service) and Dad was at The Royal Marine School of Music. Both of them serving in Deal, Kent. They met, married just before Christmas when Mum was 20 and I came along the… Read More Made In Deal, Kent…Born In Singapore
Wow. Gifted. The past few nights we have been gifted with sunsets the likes of which we’ve Never seen before. These are the times when I wish I have the skill and wherewithal to photograph properly. Tonight we are all golden and grey but last night was spectacular. Eldest son came down and ordered me… Read More Glorious Sunsets in the Village
Music and smells bring back so many real life memories. A New Year Disco party on the pier in Skegness, cheese and onion sandwiches and DEXY’s. I stupidly left my bag under our table to get up and dance with a very sexy young bloke to this song. BTW : The police (appearing after several… Read More 1983|Dexy’s|Skegness|Theft of MY Purse
Yeh. Giving thanks for being over-shadowed by a TURKEY. We have – in 500 years of marriage – only ever had a turkey for one Christmas Dinner. Yuk. So dry. So endless. So lacking in flavour. BTW : my youngest brother was born in Plymouth, Devon, ENGLAND. I remember it because Mum had a home… Read More Thanksgiving : A Moveable Feast
I had my DNA done about 10 years ago. It confirmed much of family lore and legend. Two major surprises though….How little English DNA I have and how much Scandinavian DNA. From this history person’s point of view (ME) this video is rather sad. For two reasons. I’ve always known about the Scottish/English/Viking/Russian links. And,… Read More DNA : Interesting!
Yup. I have a few connections to this film. I REFUSE to be a Stepford Wife/Robot. I’m a me and always will be. Rant over. There are more tangible examples. The director of the 1975 film was a fellow pupil of QEGS. My Grammar School also my brothers’ and my sons’ Alma Mater. Him and… Read More The Stepford Wives : My Personal Connections
OMG. In August I had this lucid dream about the Lakota. LAKOTA : 25th August 2023 This is only happening because a couple of nights ago, this crazy mind had a very lucid dream about the Lakota. Don’t ask! I know nothing about them In Real Life. ***** Next Friday is my birthday. 24th November.… Read More Lakota/Heyoka/Thunder Beings/Horses
And wax cylinders. If y’all don’t know by now, I live in Lincolnshire, England. We have such a rich history here. Even in my little village and slightly larger local market town with a Market Charter going back to 1231. Our biggest claim to fame is Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Dracula? Watch and learn.
Oooh. Dixing? Dossing? Doxxing myself here? This image shows the lane to my house. To the right of her (as you see the image) is the church. Right behind is an end road aka my home. To the left are fields with a public footpath that is kept 24/7/365 clear for walkers. I love that… Read More Living History
I have not seen my husband for 2 and a half days now. He works for the council from 6 am to 4 pm then is on Emergency Rescue call (all day and night) for three weeks out of four. I’m an early to bed, early to rise person. 5 to 6 am is wake… Read More Missing in Action
I celebrated my 19th birthday in Benidorm, Spain. Myself and Lesley, former Green Coat Entertainment staff at The Derbyshire Miners Holiday Camp, Skegness, volunteered to take a load of Old Age Pensioners from Lincolnshire to Benidorm for the holiday of a lifetime. It was the end of November. We flew from East Midlands Airport and… Read More Benidorm : Tainted Love
OK. Bless ’em. Didn’t panic. Much! We Brits are all experts in the weather. Yet we go to pieces whenever the weather goes rogue. Like the past two days of torrential rain. My village is on a hill and I’ve NEVER known it flood. Until today. Yes. The garden is underwater but the house is… Read More Knock, Knock…Who’s There? The Fire Brigade
Last weekend we talking pikeys. HE told me off for being very non-PC. I laughed out loud because he’s the least PC person I know. Anyhoo. Pikeys aka Gypsies. And how I’d lived with the grandparents in a tiny village in North Lincolnshire (twice) Both times long enough to be enrolled in the village school.… Read More Oor Wullie & The Broons
The year we married. We spent our wedding night next door to my parents’ house in Skegness. A little street with two police houses. Parentals lived in one and a single copper lived next door… but he’d been called away for weeks to deal with The Miner’s Strike. Ergo – it became our honeymoon suite… Read More SCABS : 1984 in the UK
Loving Neil Oliver. Nanny Lily, Dad’s Mum, was born and bred there. She gave us my Dad. My Dad gave us me. Ergo : Blaming Glasgow for my life … Laugh Out Loud :o) It’s not a city that I know well. I know Belfast better, and Berlin, and Karachi. Strange but True. And my… Read More Glasgow : The Making of ME
Like it/Believe it or Not : The Public House (Pub) has been more of a social centre in British History than the Church. I began looking into the old buildings that my local town has lost when we moved here in 1999. I’d lived here from the age of 10 to 17 and was amazed… Read More Pubs & The Great British Social Life
Sad as it sounds – my brothers and I spent quite a lot of our childhood visiting our paternal grandparents in Kinghorn, Fife. We are old enough to remember those hazy, crazy, days of childhood and the FREEDOM to roam. I’ll never remember just how many times we’d walk down the hill from grandparents’ flat… Read More Kinghorn Railway Station
Did I already say that this Patsy trip was started a few days back when Himself asked me what a PATSY was and I made his ears bleed by talking about The Pazzi Conspiracy? Well. I’ve said it now/again. Some youtubers should carry on making videos. Not many but Angelo Esposito , in my humble… Read More Patsy vs Pazzi : Part 4
There is nothing that I cannot pin to my life to – what’s the word? – to validate these posts. Deacon Blue. Scottish. I’m a fan. Stirling – went there “glamping” in the ’80’s. Travelled from Londonderry to Larne, caught the ferry to Stranraer, felt very sick. Driven from Stranraer, in a 4tonner, to Stirling.… Read More Fergus Sings The Blues
Nope. Even Ernest Hemingway was a plagiarist. In the 17th century John Donne wrote : Each man’s death diminishes me, For I am involved in mankind. Therefore, send not to know. For whom the bell tolls, It tolls for thee. We were out in the front of the house early doors this morning. He’s up a… Read More For Whom The Bell Tolls
My father-in-law joined the British Army aged 15 as a Royal Engineer. He began as a Sapper and ended as a Major and somewhere along the way he was given command of a Gurkha Barracks in Nepal. My boys’ father and Aunt went to live in Nepal when they were 6 and 4 years old… Read More Kukris & The Smell of Brasso
Yup. I have a connection to Brighton. Before our kids were born, Himself was the Physical Training Instructor at Roussillon Barracks, Chichester (The Royal Military Police Training Centre) where we’d both been trained and then lived at. He volunteered to do the famous London to Brighton bike ride and I drove to Brighton to meet… Read More Brighton/Blackadder/My Life
My thanks go to Static in the Attic for bringing this video back into my attention orbit. We (me & he) were talking about his work-mates this morning and it blew my mind that well over half of them – age ranged from 20’s to 60’s – were coke and/or meth heads. Apparently all and… Read More The Four Stages of Ideological Subversion (1984)
I have a terracotta mask of The Green Man on my kitchen wall. He was a present from my brother’s wife many years ago. HE’s always fascinated me (The Green Man) and is the reason I got into Phil Rickman’s books in a BIG way. The Cold Calling was first published under the nom de… Read More Merlin/Herne the Hunter/The GREEN MAN
…Into personality types. I’ve talked, here, about Nature vs Nurture before and my own personal life experience has taught me that NATURE trumps Nurture. On this stage we have the Hero/Heroine aka The Goody. For dramatic action this goody must confront the Villain. Storytelling 101. All other characters are secondary (aka LARP/NPC) to this vital… Read More All The World’s A Stage : Let’s Break This Down…
Alanis sings my life. ! DO I STRESS YOU OUT? Sweater on inside out. Oh. Done that :o)
This empath journey of mine over these last decades has been fascinating. EVERYTHING that I’ve been called out for since childhood and worried/freaked out about/crucified myself for is now understood. Of course there have been times when I’ve been so ripped apart that I’ve believed the/they/them and their vitriol. But – at my age now… Read More One Way Or Another, I’m Gonna Getcha :o)
A few days back I posted The Magic Geekdom’s video called Why You SHOULD Visit Lincoln Where I mentioned The Red Arrows. Today – this shows up in my subs list. It’s a bit of a bummer when you get to see them do their displays in other countries after seeing them regularly practice over… Read More Lincoln & The Red Arrows
1985 to 1987 were apocalyptic years for us. 1985 : saw the release of this song. 1986 : I miscarried a child and Chernobyl happened. No links. 1987 : The GREAT STORM happened. SB aka BS and his Flying Monkeys have had hours to TAKE ON ME and my comment on the channel. I’m a… Read More TAKE ON ME – Aha
….You got to show some respectDon’t you walk through my words‘Cause you ain’t heard me out yet I blame Marilyn. BFF’s mother who met Bob the Marley before he was famous. SHE introduced me to this beat and freshly baked plantain bread for breakfast…as a hangover cure. Bloody Woman :o) 10CC? Why? …..is that the… Read More Don’t You Walk Through My Words….
Ahem. My husband lived in the Burj for a few months. I spent a week there with him. That’s a m’eh from me. 60 somethingth floor. Bedroom, sitting room, dining room in the kitchen. With, I have to admit, the best bathroom experience I’ve ever had. EVER. It’s a very silly idea to put bubblebath… Read More Burj Khalifa & Being Scared of Heights
Novel research meant knowing far more about Les Normans than was needed. Even though they supposedly invaded here in 1066. Led by William, the Bastard, Conqueror. Then you get the FAMOUS Twelve Knights of Glamorgan – who may or may not have taken Glamorgan from the Welsh. The legend of the Twelve Knights of Glamorgan… Read More Halley’s Comet in 1066 : It’s On The Bayeux Tapestry
Puccini. None Shall Sleep. LOL. I only know this song so well because of Italia ’90 World Cup. And I only know it’s Puccini because I’ve watched every single episode of Colin Dexter’s Inspector Morse with John Thaw several times. Hey. We learn from those better than us. No shame! We were living in Ulster… Read More Nessun Dorma
OMG. My youngest son’s bestie is the son of one of MY besties at school. I don’t see her often now, even though she lives just 10 miles away, but I pass her messages through her boy- who calls me his second Mummy. LIKE : Ask your Mum if she remembers that teenage week on… Read More THESE Are The Days of Our Lives
I’m peeling shallots and sneezing my head off when I hear a familiar sound from the other room. HOLD UP, says my brain. What is that TV showing now? Aha. Press pause and then let Mr Marine’s videos roll. Wonderful. I went to Inverbrothock School in Arbroath. When Dad was away doing the mountain thing… Read More 45 Commando : Arbroath
I swear to MY creator that when living in Scotland, as a child, the rag & bone man came around to our houses. Why the vivid memory? Because of the Shire Horse. Frit me to death because I only went up to his knee. HUGE. I also remember the drays who’d bring the casks of… Read More Going Back To My Roots : Rag & Bone Man
Henry V, Son of Henry of Bolingbroke via Shakespeare said this about a Band Of Brothers. Then a Mini Series was made called Band of Brothers The actors trained where we -my husband, myself and my two boys, lived for over 4 years. Himself is STILL TO THIS DAY the longest serving Close Protection Trainer… Read More Band of Brothers
My baby boy and I had walked to the city centre the day before this happened. We walked back a couple of days later and the shops were all up and running again. God’s Honest Truth. I’ve done the history of the Bloodied Right Hand so many times and no one will listen. I’ll try… Read More The Strangeness of Fate
Uncontrolled Historian 