Sir Ernest Shackleton: “What the ice gets, the ice keeps”

  “For scientific discovery give me Scott; for speed and efficiency of travel give me Amundsen; but when disaster strikes and all hope is gone, get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton.”                                                    —Antarctic explorer Sir Raymond Priestly For those new to Shackleton, it might seem counterintuitive to celebrate the leader of a failed…

Visit the Chalke Valley History Festival….!

  “….a forensic reconstruction of how Richard III lost his life at Bosworth….” I don’t know what the above extract entails, and to find out I need a ticket! The reconstruction  is one of the many attractions at the forthcoming . Chalke Valley History Festival  It all sounds excellent and I hope the crowds pour…

The other talents of Sir Clements Markham

To historians, Ricardians in particular, Clements Markham is best known as the writer who built on the earlier research of Horace Walpole and others to rehabilitate the last Plantagenet during the Edwardian era. In this capacity, his rivalry with James Gairdner is legendary and he wrote a biography of Edward VI, however Markham was a…

The wrong Philippa for Reading….!

Reading in Berkshire is apparently famous for, among other things, five varieties of potato. Nine other items for which Reading is renowned are listed here, and I presume that eight of them are correct. But the last one definitely is NOT! I quote: “Philippa Gregory, the woman who found the body of Richard III under a car…