Carriage hangs off a bridge over a ravine On 9 June, 1865, fifty-three-year old Charles Dickens was returning to London from a trip to Paris. After crossing on the night ferry, he then caught the daily boat train from Folkestone. …

Red carpet for bedraggled British student tour party That mildly sullen student boredom still beams out across the decades. I look particularly mopey — hand on head, skulking in a slither of shadow. Three of the other young men stare down at what would now be TikTok videos — but…

I have to peer closely. Is that really us? “What have you in common with the child of five whose photograph your mother keeps on the mantelpiece? Nothing, except that you happen to be the same person.” George Orwell My mum’s cousin, Margie Beirne left us in December. Margie was…

Eloping couple marry in Gibraltar Two days after Paul and Linda’s wedding, John and Yoko are in a car on their way to visit John’s Aunt Mimi. After a deep discussion on the back seat, they announce glad tidings to their driver. “We’ve decided to get married.” “Congratulations, sir. When’…

…. a pioneering genius, bumbling dilettante, megalomaniac visionary, responsible scientist and just about everything in between… Damion Searls Hermann Rorschach (1884–1922) invented what would become one of the most widely used personality assessment tools. The ‘ink blot test’ emerged from the Swiss psychiatrist’s passion for klecksography — turning inkblots into…

“The first time I thought we’d really made it, was when I was lying in bed one morning, and I heard a milkman whistling ‘From Me to You’ Paul McCartney Following the dramatic chart success of Please, Please Me, The Beatles started 1963 as the British pop music’s most exciting…

Neglected genius? Or ‘terrible painter’ brought down by ‘mad vanity’? Read Part 1 Weeks after the closure of his Eygptian Hall exhibition came another crushing blow. Haydon had long campaigned for the commissioning of public art for major buildings . …

In April 1846 there were two exhibitions at the Egyptian Hall in London. One had crowds queuing down the street. The other... It was the ‘General Tom Thumb, the Midget’ exhibition that seems to have pushed Benjamin Robert Haydon over the edge. Haydon (1786–1846) had achieved early success as a…

“John Lennon began the ’60s with a car crash in Scotland. He ended the decade with another car crash in Scotland.” Ken McNab ‘The Beatles in Scotland’ John Lennon and cars didn’t really get on, especially north of Hadrian’s Wall. In 1960 he was asleep in the passenger seat when…