Me most of the time: oh I'm from the North East, it's okay nobody knows it that well - haha not quite Newcastle but Haway the Lads and all that!! :) Me during the General Strike centenary: THAT'S D-U-R-H-A-M TO YOU - IS THAT A MIDLAND ACCENT I HEAR? YOU *RAT*, I WILL ONLY TALK TO THE WELSH

Making a pancake out of Yorkshire pudding batter and using it as a rudimentary tortilla for a Christmas Dinner Leftovers Burrito is both my greatest culinary invention and my greatest crime. However, I did look extremely smug walking into the living room holding a full Christmas dinner in one hand.

Twelve places in labour history sslh.org.uk/tag/place-in...

Responding to a threat to lock down my entirely sheep-based economy with "I'd rather die standing than live kneeling" Churchill wishes he was me

Christmas Day 2025, also known as ground zero of Duncan's Catan phase

Concluding our series on places in labour history, Greg Billam takes us to St George's Plateau, Liverpool, where crowds have gathered for more than a century for key social, political, and cultural episodes in the city’s history sslh.org.uk/2025/12/24/s...

Christmas holiday reading off to an interesting start as I swing dramatically between Corinne Fowler and Tim Key.

Is there anything as liminal as an intercity train at night? I have absolutely no idea where I am most of the time. This is probably what Purgatory looks like these days

The future of England is a Sunday roast with Yorkshire puddings and Jolof rice and that is not a force that can really be slowed

We have a new guide to archive sources for #co-operative #history on the website. You can download the 35-page PDF here sslh.org.uk/2025/12/07/s...

In our continuing series on places in labour history, Mike Mecham argues that West Ham and Canning Town in East London form a cornerstone of the British labour movement sslh.org.uk/2025/12/08/w...

Entered the pub and Liverpool were 2-0 up against Leeds. Wondered where the Liverpool I'd seen this season had gone? Five minutes pass and it's 2-2. Ah, there they are.

The first three posts in our Places in Labour History series are now on our website. Duncan Hamilton on the County Hotel and Durham Miners’ Gala. Jane Donaldson on the 1938 co-operative movement pageant. Mark Crail on the burial place of Chartist writer Helen Macfarlane sslh.org.uk/tag/place-in...

Writing a bit about pubs in Chartism (Cooper advocates for them as meeting places in his novel but doesn't mention the whole, you know, drunkenness aspect). Having a fun moment getting to quote from the Chartist Circular's teetotal address that my 3x and 4x great-grandfathers both signed.

As much as I'm a scholar of Chartism, I'm also a Durham lad. It was great, therefore, to have a chance to write about one of the first sites to inspire my interest in British labour history, situated at the heart of the Miners Gala.

My Thomas Cooper library grows in size and splendour with an extremely rare first edition of Alderman Ralph. Only the first volume, alas, but there's plenty of indecipherable notes in the back to keep me busy until Volume 2 surfaces!

Alert

There's very little that gives me a rush like passing an 8% check in Disco Elysium

My grandfather emerged from the plains of Saskatchewan to become a professional ice hockey player in the 40s/50s and I will always defend the sport. It is completely insane. This is a great piece. Forget the shortform media content and watch people smash each other about on the ice as a replacement!

Starmer has gone from a draconian head of the Crown Prosecution Service to a jewel thief in just over a decade. One of the most insane lateral moves of all time

Bring back Chartist plays - not BBC Schools necessarily, just an absolute boatload of Chartist plays. A Director-General vote for Duncan is a vote for common sense

Reading some old BBC Schools broadcasting notes because the incredible Thomas Cooper play (WRITTEN BY ALAN PLATER) is featured and - man, the Beeb used to be something, didn't it? Our Tom would have strongly approved of the educational angle.

William Morris's 'News From Nowhere' is actually a how-to guide on what we should do with cities

Another lovely day working on my thesis about radicalism in the 19th century - now to spend several hours writing about Anglo-Saxon Witangemots

Apart from the desire to produce beautiful things, the leading passion of my life has been and is hatred of modern civilization. -William Morris

Last night I started David Olusoga's new Empire series (excellent and I hugely recommend it - David is a much better historian than he is a Faithful). Monday in the archive and the first pamphlet I open is a case of some good old Imperial Federationism from an ex-Chartist. Many, MANY such cases.

all if forgiven, this show is perfect. #GameOfWool

Had a long-overdue haircut this week and made the decision to do a close shave afterwards. This proved to be a mistake but it has, at least, allowed me to complete the Carroll diagram of Duncan's Many Looks Yes, I look good with the scruff and the cropped hair, I'm not ashamed.

I am ~15 years into my Europa Universalis V game and I'm blown away. This is a simulation of the ENTIRE world for 500 years (1337-1821), yet still deep enough for me to lose myself in battling Devonian and Cornish tin merchants over their weird local legal system #SmashTheStannaryLaws #EUV

Hoping this helps our colleagues across the industry

In Newport South Wales on November 4 1839 Chartists nearly succeeded in sparking a revolution. The crack regiment of the British Army shot 22 dead wp.me/p15p2Q-8NH

Listen to Journey Through Time, available on all major podcast platforms 🎙️

After an extremely full-on week followed by an even more full-on weekend (don't do 8hrs of trains in one day, kids) I fully reserve the right to swan around Hexham in various high-quality items of wool clothing

You know what time of year it is

An order of chicken fingers is called a hand. “Gimme a hand of fingies,” you say. If you want dipping sauce you ask for them to “paint the nails.”

Three bloody years on this PhD and I still get jumpscared by the low-contrast Thomas Cooper

Armando Iannucci and Stewart Lee on the language of politics is perfect (and very distracting) background noise to write to

There's a strange sort of enjoyment in seeing someone I massively respect and admire intellectually be so confidently wrong all of the time #CelebrityTraitors

Starting my literature review with "*record scratch* *freeze frame* Yup, that's me. You're probably wondering just how I got into this situation" (I know this isn't the Sunset Boulevard quote but it IS the quote of the mythologised version of the trope ca. 2010)

Style icons

Shopping at a pop-up market, upgrading my laptop with some new RAM (EUV get hype) and deep cleaning the entire flat after putting it off for, frankly, way too long. If anyone deserves burgers* and chips for dinner it's this guy *big up Linda McCartney

I defy anyone to find a better Friday night than a sensible couple of beers and an Ealing comedy. Tonight's showing is The Titfield Thunderbolt, a film I refuse to hear a bad word about

The history and legacy of the British Empire with @davidolusoga.bsky.social Coming in November. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m... 🗃️📚📺 #history

Late Chartism is wild. What do you mean Ernest Jones is coming out to bat for Thomas Cooper against Gammage's 'History of the Chartist Movement'? Whose side is anyone on?

Banger Young Ones reference from SOAS #UniversityChallenge #ToxtethOGrady

I currently spend my Mondays doing just about the greatest thing: cleaning and cataloguing pre-1930s pamphlets published by the co-operative movement. I would be lying if exposure to early CWS ephemera wasn't having a massive effect on my politics

Proud to pay my respects to KING DAVID HARTLEY OF CRAGG VALE and also this poet my partner likes I guess

Uh, whose Wuthering Heights?

Brilliant book but especially essential reading for anyone interested in the history of commons land management

The Pilgrimage of Grace was a great northern rising that began as the Lincolnshire Rising before spreading to Yorkshire in October 1536 and then across the region. Described as the most serious rebellion of the Tudor age, it was driven by anger at Henry VIII’s break with Rome, the