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THE WAY I SEE IT – what is triggering the violence? The first four months of this year were full of news reports of stabbings, and even killings, among young people in north London. Almost all of the victims and perpetrators were teen-agers, some as young as thirteen. My grand-daughter, who teaches at a comprehensive...

The Windrush Exhibition – a tribute to the migrants This month (June) marks 70 years since the Empire Windrush arrived at Tilbury Docks carrying hundreds of migrants from the Caribbean. The British Library opens its special Windrush Exhibition this month (1st June to 21st October).  Key exhibits in the Windrush Exhibition include ER Braithwaite’s original...

Tribute to Charles Rennie Mackintosh The architect, artist and designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh was born in Glasgow 150 years ago, on 7th June 1868. He was prominent in the Arts and Crafts movement, and it has been said that his unique, innovative style changed the art world for ever. He is best known for a...

It was: 400 years ago, on 23rd May 1618, that the Thirty Years’ War (Central Europe, mainly present-day Germany) began.   One of the longest and most destructive conflicts in European history.  Millions of people were killed.  Finally ended on 15th May 1648. 200 years ago, on 4th May 1818 that Britain and the Netherlands signed...

If, like me, you wonder how on earth people coped with the sheer horror of the carnage on the battlefields of the First World War, two pieces of writing suggest an answer. One, the poem ‘For the Fallen’, I wrote  about last month. In this article I would like to consider the poem, subsequently an...

Ramadan this year runs from 15th May to 14th June.  You may wish to join in with more than one million Christians worldwide who spend this month praying for Muslims. You can download a prayer guide that provides churches, small groups and individuals with helpful information on Muslims: what they believe, where they live in...

Whoever organised the very first flower festival? One thing for sure – they would never have guessed how popular the events would become.  Flower festivals are held in thousands of parish churches each year, and some have blossomed into floral extravaganzas that can take months to plan, attract large crowds, and raise significant sums of...

Where do you go to hear the terms pettling, flowering, barking or puddling? Derbyshire, or course – where the tradition of ‘well dressing’ goes right back to 1394, when two annual displays in Tissington and Buxton began. Nowadays, there are dozens of well dressings held across Derbyshire each summer. So – how does one dress...

Israel became an independent state 70 years ago this month, on 14th May 1948, as the British mandate in Palestine finally came to an end. The very next day Egypt, Iraq, Jordan and Syria invaded Palestine, and a 13-month war began.  The Arabs and Jews had been in tension with each other and the British...

The Thirty Years’ War began 400 years ago, on 23 May 1618, and ended almost exactly 30 years later, on 15 May 1648. It was one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in European history. Probably eight million people were killed, mainly in what is now Germany. It was the deadliest European religious war,...

It was: 175 years ago, on 5th April 1843 that Hong Kong was proclaimed a British crown colony.  (Hong Kong had been ceded to Britain in perpetuity in the Treaty of Nanking, signed in August 1842, at the end of the First Opium War.) Also 175 years ago, on 15th April 1843 that Henry James,...

April 1918 was possibly the last really low point in the War for the Allies. Casualties remained high – indeed, so high that it was felt necessary to extend conscription (compulsory military service) to all men up to the age of 50. There were setbacks on the Western Front, too. Another German operation, bizarrely named...