Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
In all the commemoration of the First World War, and the inevitable political spats, there’s been a great deal of talk from various folks wanting to use it for their own present-day agendas. So far, so normal. That’s history for you. At one end of the spectrum are small and big-‘c’ conservatives who claim the […]
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Biological warfare in Bristol?
Here’s another one of my favourite Bristol WW1 tales; a favourite because it contains a great big unanswered, and possibly unanswerable question. Bubonic plague. Scary stuff because that’s, like, what the Black Death was about. The thing that killed maybe as much as half the population of Europe in the 14th century. It’s always been […]
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The B-word
Just got back from collecting copies of the latest book what I wrote. They look smashing. ‘Bravo, Bristol! The City at War 1914-18’ is co-authored by Clive Burlton and me. Even if I say so myself, it’s rather splendid. It’s actually much easier to brag about things you’ve co-written because of course you’re not claiming […]
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They come over here …
This is Henri Coandă. Handsome devil, ain’t he? He was damn clever, too. He was born in 1886 and invented a recoilless gun, prefabricated houses and a solar-powered system of desalination, among many other things. He is best-known, however, as one of the leading early pioneers of aviation. He designed several experimental aircraft including (though […]
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From John Latimer: The Annals of Bristol in the 17th Century (William George’s Sons, Bristol, 1900) A highly interesting donation to the city was offered to the Council on December 7th. Mr. Robert Redwood, a wealthy Bristolian living in St. Leonard’s parish, proffered his “lodge near the Marsh” for conversion into a library for the […]
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Norton ye Alchymyst
I mention this in honour of this weekend’s forthcoming Bristol Con, which I can’t make. I know how much they all like weird Bristol yarns. But it’s also in honour of the forthcoming half-millennium anniversary of the death of a very important Bristolian, or an utterly insignificant one (delete according to taste). This is Thomas […]
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The Bells, The Bells…
Cah. Start out with the best of intentions and then you get sidetracked. Not looked at or done anything with the blog since the summer. So you come back and see that 19 comments are pending and waiting approval. And they all say how marvellous this blog is and how much they love what “you […]
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2014 & All That
Next year sees the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War. The chatter over how this should be marked has already started. There’s no point putting any links in here. You can Google the debate easily enuff, with government ministers, historians and assorted pundits all offering various views. These basically split into […]
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I officially become editor of the Post’s Bristol Times this week, following the retirement of Gerry Brooke. He’ll be a hard act to follow as he really does know everything about Bristol’s history. BT is the Bristol Post’s local history/nostalgia section and it’s in the middle of the paper every Tuesday. This week’s includes articles […]
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Eugene Byrne 