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Will Aid, www.willaid.org.uk, the UK’s most enduring and successful charity Will-making scheme, runs again this month, throughout November.  If you haven’t yet written your Will, now is the time to think about it! This is how the system works: Will Aid solicitors all over the UK agree to write basic Wills during November, without charging...

All in the month of OCTOBER Agatha Christie’s Mousetrap George Cadbury – the chocolate man with a heart for welfare One hundred years of the BBC Remembering Coleridge 6th October – National Poetry Day  ** Editor:  We continue our column that looks at memorable dates in the month (this time, October) down the years. Here...

It was: 250 years ago, on 21st October 1772 that Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born. He co-founded (with William Wordsworth) the Romantic Movement of poetry. Best known for The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan. 200 years ago, on 20th October 1822 that the Sunday Times newspaper was first published in the UK....

It was 70 years ago, on 6th October 1952, that the world premiere of Agatha Christie’s play, The Mousetrap, opened in Nottingham. It then opened in London on 25th November, and is still going, making it the world’s longest-running play. Originally a short radio play written as a birthday present for Queen Mary, it was broadcast...

One hundred years ago, on 24th October 1922, George Cadbury died. He had transformed his father’s failing chocolate and cocoa business into one of the world’s most successful companies and provided low-cost housing and improved working conditions for his employees. George was the third son of John Cadbury, a Quaker who founded Cadbury’s cocoa and...

One hundred years ago, on 18th October 1922, the BBC was officially founded as the British Broadcasting Company (now the British Broadcasting Corporation). It was originally a private company, in which only British manufacturers were permitted to hold shares. But three years later it was liquidated and in 1927 replaced by a public corporation –...

Who needs a poem? Apparently, many people feel much better for them – either in writing them or in reading them. That is the reason for the National Day of Poetry, which wants to see “an explosion of activity nationwide,” from kitchen tables to gardens and public spaces, “all celebrating poetry’s power to bring people...

All in the month of SEPTEMBER Hadrian’s Wall now 1900 years old When the Church first agreed that the Earth went around the Sun Highest temperatures ever recorded Remembering Mother Teresa, 25 years on Join in the World’s Biggest Coffee Morning for MacMillan Cancer Support ** Editor:  We continue our column that looks at memorable...

It was: 1900 years ago, from 13th September 122 to 128 that Hadrian’s Wall was built in northern England. It ran for 80 miles from coast to coast and marked the northern limit of the Roman Empire. The Roman Emperor, Hadrian, wanted to separate the Romans from ‘the barbarians.’ 200 years ago, on 11th September...

It was 1900 years ago, from 13th September 122 to 128, that Hadrian’s Wall was built in northern England. It ran for nearly 80 miles from coast to coast and marked the northern limit of the Roman Empire. The Roman Emperor, Hadrian, wanted to separate the Romans from ‘the barbarians’. In pre-Christian England the Picts...

It was only 200 years ago, on 11th September 1822, that the Roman Catholic Church admitted that the 16th century astronomer Galileo Galilei might have been right about the Earth orbiting the Sun.  The College of Cardinals reversed the Church’s condemnation of his ideas. Galileo had spent the last nine years of his life under...

One hundred years ago, on 13th September 1922, the highest temperature ever recorded in the world was reported to be 57.7 Centigrade (136 Fahrenheit) in Al’Aziziyah in Libya. This stood for nearly a century but was challenged at various times and eventually decertified by the World Meteorological Organisation in 2012, which believed there was a...