My August 5 post, ‘The Worst Journey in the World,’ is an account of my father’s World War Two service in the Royal Navy. It covers the period from 1940, when he began his training at HMS Royal Arthur, Skegness, through to his demobilisation in 1945. Francis Harold Wand, 1940 Within that time he served …
Here I continue the Arthurian theme of my previous essay, titled The Hero Within. As I stated in that post, the story of King Arthur has long captivated me, and I’ve loved to read about mist-shrouded Avalon. In the story of England, it is here - in Arthur’s Camelot, with its many colourful and legendary …
Ever since our earliest ancestors began telling one another stories we have enjoyed tales of adventure, daring and heroism. It matters not whether the account is real or make believe, our level of enjoyment is proportionate to the thrill of the tale. The more gutsy the courage and greater the risk the more rewarding the …
Last weekend, here in Britain, we enacted the procedure known bizarrely as ‘Daylight Saving,’ and on Saturday night, we dialled our clocks back one hour. This is done on the last Saturday each October in a bid (we are told) to capitalise on daylight, as though changing the clocks will somehow miraculously increase the number …
While drafting a recent post, ‘The Worst Journey in the World,’ I was conducting a final edit of the piece when I remembered that I possessed an old ring binder containing my father’s mementos of his Russian Convoy Club membership. I knew the folder had included an assortment of relevant press cuttings, and suspecting that …
When researching subjects for my ‘general interest’ posts, information trails can often pick up threads to other, diverse topics. This post is such an example. It began with a simple desire to discover the background to the name of a local breakdown recovery firm. My research led me from a windswept patch of North Lincolnshire …
Some weeks back I decided to pull a book from my shelf to read for the second time, a novel written by English author James Lovegrove. I'd enjoyed it first time around back in 2017, and as it turned out, the second reading proved to be equally pleasurable. So much so, I thought I’d write …
As is the case with Marmite, fans of author Stephen King fall into two diametrically opposed camps. Those who love his work occupy one side. On the other are those who either dislike his work intensely or, as is sadly so often the case, those who have never read him and never will ... 'because …
Of all the battles fought during the second world war, which do you think was the longest? If you were to ask that question of someone you may receive any number of answers. One might be ‘the North Africa campaign,’ or perhaps ‘the Battle for Normandy.' Some may suggest ‘The Battle of Britain.’ But all …
On February 10, 1906, the Royal Navy launched its latest warship out of the H.M. Dockyard, Portsmouth. The vessel, the first capital ship to be powered by steam turbines, represented such a momentous development in naval technology that its commissioning in December of that year spawned an entire generation of battleships, the classification for which …
RAVEN MOON 