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One hundred years ago, on 16th January 1922, Ralph Vaughan Williams’ A Pastoral Symphony was performed for the first time, in London. Later designated Symphony No. 3, it was said to be inspired by the composer hearing a bugler practising and is frequently thought of as a memorial for the fallen of the First World...

Some 80 years ago, on 29th January 1942, the BBC radio show Desert Island Discs was first broadcast.  It is Britain’s longest running radio show, and the world’s longest running weekly factual radio programme. Devised and originally presented by Roy Plomley, it was first broadcast on the BBC Forces Programme, but later switched to Radio...

It was 75 years ago, on 8th January 1947, that David Bowie, pop/glam rock singer, songwriter and actor, was born in London. He became one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, dying in 2016. Born David Robert Jones, he studied art and design before transforming himself into an enigmatic and exploratory singer,...

How many works of literature still contain references to animals?  A study of 16,000 works, written between 1705 and 1969, and including books such as Goethe’s Faust and Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, has found that even in literature, animals are fading towards extinction. Professors at Leipzig’s Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research found that 1830 was...

Covid has caused the biggest drop in life expectancy in Western Europe since the Second World War. More than five million people have died worldwide after getting infected. When academics studied death rates from 29 countries, which included most of Europe as well as the US, they found that life expectancy has decreased in 27...

The Met Office is considering whether to begin naming heatwaves, as they are becoming more dangerous. Naming them will make the public pay more attention to them, and take them more seriously. The Met Office says that as the climate warms, so heatwaves will become increasingly likely.  Since 2015, storms have been named in alphabetical...

The National Trust is tired of cleaning up after your dog. It has now removed dog poo waste bins from their sites, to force dog walkers to take the poo bags home for disposal. The National Trust says that the waste bins are filling up faster than they can empty them, and that it costs...

It was George Jennings, an English sanitary engineer and plumber, who in 1851 invented the first public flush toilets.  He said: “the civilisation of a people can be measured by their domestic and sanitary appliances.” Yet now, across the UK, public lavatories are in dismal and steep decline. The number of lavatories maintained by local...

All in the month of December The coming of St Columba Remembering Dorothy Wordsworth Steve Biko – speaking out on behalf of blacks The day Mikhail Gorbachev resigned Dwindling wildlife in Britain Beware raw sewage Plastic spending ** Editor:  We continue our column that looks at memorable dates in the month (this time, DECEMBER) down...

It was: 1500 years ago, on 7th December 521 that St Columba, Irish missionary who spread Christianity in Scotland, was born. He was one of the Twelve Apostles of Ireland. 250 years ago, on 25th December 1771 that Dorothy Wordsworth, writer, poet, and diarist, was born. She was sister to the poet William Wordsworth. 175...

It was 1500 years ago, on 7th December 521, that St Columba, an Irish missionary who spread Christianity in Scotland and the North of England, was born in what is now County Donegal. Columba – also known as Columcille – was one of the Twelve Apostles of Ireland, who studied under St Finnian in his...

Two hundred and fifty years ago, on 25th December 1771, Dorothy Wordsworth – writer, poet and diarist – was born. She was sister to the poet William Wordsworth. She had no ambitions to be a published author herself, but her diaries – particularly the Grasmere Journal, eventually published in 1897 – reveal her to be a...