Category Archives: This sceptred isle

It was once commented to me that one never saw a happy jogger. At face value, the comment was easy to accept. How many times had I passed runners whose expression seemed, at best, a grimace and, at worst, an … Continue reading →

On this day in 1960, the naming ceremony took place for the very last steam locomotive built by British Rail. The 999th locomotive of the British Railways Standard range, the Evening Star was the only locomotive built with the object of … Continue reading →

Pitney lies three miles distant from High Ham. A tiny village tucked into the fold of the undulating Somerset countryside, it has suffered the fate of many similar villages. Its school is long closed. The church of the parish of … Continue reading →

Why do school students go backwards? Why do so many of the people who could hold a sensible and mature conversation in Year 7 become immature children who sit and giggle in Year 8, and diffident and uninterested teenagers in … Continue reading →

Do not ask children questions about what they think if you are not prepared for truthful answers, they will tell you exactly what they think, untarnished, unmoderated, sometimes without thought as to what they are saying. So it was on … Continue reading →