Books, Poetry, Politics, RattleBag and Rhubarb, WW2

1940 and the #1940Club

Hope I’m not jumping the gun here but the #1940Club starts next week and I’ve been gearing up and getting ready.  The idea is simple. It’s a fun event with no pressure because you can choose anything from the year and read as much or as little as suits you. You can share on your blogs, Twitter, Instagram, Goodreads, in…

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Books, Poetry, RattleBag and Rhubarb

One Day in Paris 1919

We’re not likely to be flying anywhere anytime soon so here’s the next best thing: A trip back in time – to 1919 and a 24 hour tour of Paris. Our guide is the poet Hope Mirrlees. In Paris she was the friend of Gertrude Stein, Natalie Barney, Andre Gide, Paul Valéry and companion/ lover of the Cambridge classicist scholar…

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Art, Books, My Poetry, Poetry, Politics, RattleBag and Rhubarb

All Our Yesterdays with the #1936Club

There was a period in the early 1960s when my parents had a television (in those days you rented) and one of the programs I liked to watch was All Our Yesterdays produced by Granada Television. It was a look back in time based on the newsreel footage of that week twenty-five years ago –  a week-by-week journey through the…

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Books, RattleBag and Rhubarb

From Hamnet to The Water Dancer in Six Moves #6Degrees

One book leads to another. Six Degrees of Separation comes via Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. Readers start with the same book and see where their connections take them by the first Saturday of the month. The starting point for January 2021 is Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell (2020). Follow the hashtag #6degrees on Twitter to check out…

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Politics, RattleBag and Rhubarb, WW2

The Darkest Hours -1940 and 2018

1940 has been well served by blockbuster movies this past year. Last summer there was Dunkirk as legendary saga and then this winter Darkest Hour focussed on the Westminster drama of the political backdrop. Dunkirk tells the story of the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force by following what happens to some representative figures – soldiers trying to get off the beach; a…

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Art, RattleBag and Rhubarb, WW2

Under the Radar: The Hedge Hoppers and the Hardest Day

After early mist the morning of Sunday August 18 1940 was bright with clear skies. It came to be known as the hardest day in the Battle of Britain. The detail from Diana Gardner’s wood engraving makes it seem like night but there is a figure on the bottom left looking up and shielding his eyes from the sun. It…

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Art, Poetry, RattleBag and Rhubarb, WW2

The Land Girl

The land army fights in the fields. It is in the fields of Britain that the most critical battle of the present war may well be fought and won. –  Lady Denman, the Director of the Women’s Land Army, WW2 Who Won the War? It wasn’t the WRENS who won the war Whatever the WRENS may say It was the…

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