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Like many older readers I can remember being taught how to write a letter. Address, date, recipient, signature, and then we had to address the envelope, buy a stamp (two pence at that time!) and post it. The first change to that routine came exactly 60 years ago this month, with the introduction in the...

Over 80 years ago I sat next to my mother at a pantomime – ‘Cinderella’, I think. It was alright, if a bit too full of dancing for my taste.  But suddenly we were in a kitchen where the royal supper was being prepared. And wonderfully and gloriously, everything went wrong. Food took to the...

Doris Lessing, the novelist, playwright and poet, was born 100 years ago, on 22nd October 1919.  In 2007 she won the Nobel Prize in Literature.  She died in 2013. Lessing was born Doris May Tayler in Persia (now Iran). Both parents were British: her father, badly injured in the war, was a bank clerk. In...

It was 150 years ago, on 16th October 1869, that Girton College was established as one of England’s first residential colleges for women.  It became part of Cambridge University in 1948, and co-educational in 1976. Girton is one of the biggest of the 31 Cambridge colleges, situated next to Girton village about two miles from...

The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche was born 175 years ago, on 15th October 1844, near Leipzig, where his father was a Lutheran minister. His father died five years later, but young Friedrich had a brilliant school and university career. He is perhaps known best for his paradoxical statement that “God is dead”, and his suggestion...

This is the kind of story which makes you want to put gloves on.  It seems that ‘disturbing’ levels of antibiotic-resistant superbugs have been found on cash machines and escalator rails, not to mention ticket machines, soap dispensers, door handles, armrests and lavatory seats. There were other infected surfaces in Tube stations, shopping centres, hospitals,...

All in the month of SEPTEMBER First time around the world – 500 years ago Marks & Spencer – celebrating 125 years 65 years of science at CERN Why your garden needs an old sink Give nature two hours a week The reason behind food allergies? We are killing off the plants as well Where...

It was: 500 years ago, from 20th Sept 1519 to 1522 that Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan led a Spanish expedition to the East Indies.  It became the first circumnavigation of the world. But Magellan was killed in a battle with natives in the Philippines in 1521. 125 years ago, on 1st Sept 1894 that the...

Five hundred years ago, on 20th September 1519, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan led a Spanish expedition to the East Indies that turned into the first circumnavigation of the world in 1522. Magellan was a minor Portuguese noble serving the crown until King Manuel I refused to support his bid to reach India by a new...

The origins of the iconic British retail chain Marks & Spencer (often known as M&S) were laid 125 years ago, on 28th September 1894, when Michael Marks, a Polish Jewish immigrant, acquired his first permanent stall in Leeds covered market and invited Thomas Spencer to become his business partner. Ten years earlier Marks had opened...

It was 65 years ago, on 29th September 1954, that CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) was established in Geneva, Switzerland.  It actually straddles the Swiss/French border. It originated from a vision by a small number of top scientists for a world-class physics research facility in Europe, partly to stop the brain drain to...

A pond – even a small one – is the most important thing you can do for the wildlife in your garden.  So says Kate Bradbury, a presenter of the BBC nature show, SpringWatch. The problem is that the number of ponds in Britain has halved since the 1950s.  The effect on wildlife has been...