This evening I visited Liverpool’s oldest cinema Woolton Picture House (1927) to watch Four Weddings and a funeral. It was so cute with an old-fashioned interval to buy ice creams. I never really saw Four Wedding as a comedy, but tonight there was lots of giggling & at the end the audience clapped.

Just back from a windswept icy seminar where I took some first year students to St George’s Hall in Liverpool to think about buildings as primary sources and to share some local history. It was really lovely to see them feel in their handout. I brought biscuits & tea to warm everyone up!

A curious thing about being an historian of organisations with long histories is that I don’t know stuff post-1920. But perhaps an interesting discovery is that St Mildred House on the Isle of Dogs closed in 1940s coz a peanut butter factory exploded&oil seeped into the house&ran through the streets

Had a really lovely session in the Liverpool record office today. They’re was some amazing archive material from a mop head, pictures, workhouse entry reports, letters, and maps. I always feel like I’m being really tested by my students questions. Big thanks to Paul for pulling this out!

For the first time ever in my teaching career no one turned up for my seminar today. While I’m sure that St Patrick’s day has a lot to do with it, it was a very odd experience indeed. Pity really they missed a seminar where they would have heard a barrel organ. A loss for them indeed.

Today’s lecture vibe

‘Many women almost regard their washhouse as their club’. This is such a fascinating documentary of a Liverpool public wash house from 1959 from the women carrying clothes bundles on their head, to the dolly to the new machines, the drying cupboards &their cafe. m.youtube.com/watch?v=cxpA...

I spent #IWD2026 at St Margaret’s House in Bethnal Green sharing titbits about the settlement movement & looking through their in-house archive material with the wider public. I even got to cut some of their duplicate sources for a zine AND I don’t even feel guilty about it. Am I even an historian?

This has been my writing view this afternoon and isn’t it lovely. I feel like a stately home scholar at Gregynog Hall.

Cotton worker Alice Nelson sets out for work at Lilac Mill in Shaw, Lancashire, January 1955, photo by Bert Hardy for Picture Post.

I have a unicorn of (a reading) week NO MEETINGS scheduled in my calendar. It’s really delightful along with the snuggles and head kisses of this little lady #proofofcat

'Ludgate Hill, London' (1884) by Wilhelm Trübner (Private collection)

Today I virtually lead a 2 hour session for AHRC DTP students on disability in higher education at their annual EDI conference. They put together a manifesto that focused on community, advocacy, disability gain and supervision. It was super lovely and engaging and really great space to hangout in.

We have a new ‘Wuthering Heights’, a trailer for a Pride & Prejudice adaptation, actors announced for a new Jane Eyre and all I dream of is an imaginary provincial town brimming with Barbara Pym characters…

Liverpool, 1954, photo by John Chillingworth (Getty).

We have a new ‘Wuthering Heights’, a trailer for a Pride & Prejudice adaptation, actors announced for a new Jane Eyre and all I dream of is an imaginary provincial town brimming with Barbara Pym characters…

These portraits are beautiful - of their moment yet speaking in such powerful ways to our times.

Went to an archive today~Wrote lots of notes~Have more knowledge of a thing *sigh* Bliss. Bliss. Happiness.

Just given a paper in Oxford House’s chapel. It was the most coziest and loveliest of settings. I really enjoyed sharing my little titbits on settlement bedrooms. We all needed homely dressed stages when presenting!

I’m plotting and planning a presentation for Arts and Humanities PhD students for an EDI conference. I’m speaking on disability. I would love to show what good and great things departments or unis are doing for disabled PhD students. Can you share anything with me? #highereducation #PhDchat

I’m plotting and planning a presentation for Arts and Humanities PhD students for an EDI conference. I’m speaking on disability. I would love to show what good and great things departments or unis are doing for disabled PhD students. Can you share anything with me? #highereducation #PhDchat

It’s here! 📣 The Annual Disabled Student Survey Report 2025 is now LIVE, delivered in partnership with the Snowdon Trust! Thank you to everyone who took part! and supportive education system. Read & download the report on our website! #DisabledStudentsUK #DisabledStudents #AccessInsights

About 6.8 million people – half of all those in poverty – were in very deep poverty, the highest number and proportion since records began three decades ago - @jrf-uk.bsky.social analysis www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

I love a good writing retreat and am so productive at them because it is often the only time I can confidently say no to meetings & emails. Life needs to be more writing retreat. www.theguardian.com/travel/2026/...

Miner and his family, Rhondda Valley, Wales, 1931, photo by James Jarche of the Daily Herald.

For anyone in London I’m going to be giving a paper on settlement bedrooms on 19th February, 6.30-8.00. I’ll share titbits on how they were used by settlers&wardens. I’ll also discuss servants too! This will be with a building tour of Oxford House, Bethnal Green! www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/building-t...

It’s really lovely to see @cathfeely.bsky.social & my Creative History in the Classroom Forum out in @hisjournalha.bsky.social. There’s lots of suggestions here for using creativity from activities, assessments, to why now… onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/1468229x... #skyhistorians #highereducation

I think outlook should bring in festive emoticons. All I want to do today in my bloated inbox is plant a forest of Christmas trees🎄 & sprinkle snowflakes ❄️ all over my emails….

While I'm marking, my cat is pondering whether Santa will be coming down the office chimney next week... #proofofcat

Hello! I’m seeking volunteers to be interviewed for my PhD thesis on the cultural significance of the tailored suit within queer communities during the 1970s and 1980s. If you’re interested and would like more information, please contact me. Thank you, and feel free to share this with your networks!

Yesterday I was given a commendation (& a certificate) for my EDI work with the Disabled Researchers project. It’s really lovely to have this work recognised by those that nominated me/us. It really wouldn’t be possible with the wonderful @riacheyne.bsky.social! Your name should also be here.

Yesterday I was given a commendation (& a certificate) for my EDI work with the Disabled Researchers project. It’s really lovely to have this work recognised by those that nominated me/us. It really wouldn’t be possible with the wonderful @riacheyne.bsky.social! Your name should also be here.

I’m not gonna lie I think the gift tag I’ve made for my book club secret Santa is beyond cute and gleeful. We are doing a secret book swap of the books we love and I’ve chosen the mahoosive 700+ page London Belongs to Me by Norman Collins so I’m hoping the wrapping sells it…

& that’s a wrap on semester 1 teaching. For class this morning I hosted a tea party where we concluded the module, wrote on a table cloth, nattered, drink tea and ate cake. Students said some lovely things about my teaching and the module. I left a tired, but delighted lecturer.

Sometimes, I reminisce about academic Twitter the same way I reminisce about theater camp. We were all together in this wonderful and complicated and often messy space for a short time, where we built community and created something wonderful. Then the summer ended, and the magic was gone.

As a disabled historian I am so pleased that History UK (co-funded with @royalhistsoc.org) have published their report on disabled student & staff experiences of #highereducation & history. It makes for a difficult reading at times, but none of it is surprising. www.history-uk.ac.uk/projects/his...

#SkyStorians #HIstory Triple article drop! First up a forum piece by @luciejones83.bsky.social 'Making and Defining the Creative History Classroom: An Introduction', OA, doi.org/10.1111/1468...

How are higher education peeps responding to AI in their creative assessments / #unessay work? I’m slightly anxious by the way AI can be used to make primary sources, but I don’t want to restrict students to only crafted or handmade assessments. #skyhistorians

I’ve just walked past some college students making a music video & it’s given me flashbacks to when I did A Level Media Studies-like 20 years ago-we also made a music video! I do make a cameo. We really loved the fade & sepia filter. I’M GLAD THAT NO COPIES OF THIS EXIST ANYWHERE (at least I hope)

For the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, @riacheyne.bsky.social & I gave a short talk to uni research leaders on our Disabled Researchers project. I hope it encouraged some thought on dismantling the barriers disabled researchers face. We need a research culture where all can thrive.

You may have noticed that I talk A LOT abt creative methods in my teaching. Well I’ve explained in this piece why it’s important for student learning& wellbeing as well as being fun. I use this as opportunity to define creativity & how we are creative teachers onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

I’ve had a lovely afternoon chatting settlement history in Shoreditch today. It’s always fun sharing my titbits with settlements which ended with some strolling around the boundary estate. This might be one of favourite things to do as a historian.

You may have noticed that I talk A LOT abt creative methods in my teaching. Well I’ve explained in this piece why it’s important for student learning& wellbeing as well as being fun. I use this as opportunity to define creativity & how we are creative teachers onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

I had a student tell me today that one of the reasons they loved my c19th gender history module was because it made them feel really clever AND I can’t stop feeling pleased by this observation. I’ve never had someone say this to me before and it was strangely joyful.

Had a really productive afternoon after at Liverpool’s Colonial Legacies’ event on archives & uncovering voices. The papers were thought provoking&stimulating (esp because mainly papers reflected on creative methods). I really liked the hands-on activity; tracing a Liverpool doorway from a photo

BAVS2026 has a shiny new website! www.ljmu.ac.uk/bavs2026! To celebrate, we are extending our CFP to December 12th. Do come and join us

Rochdale chippy owners Jimmy and Elsie Greenwood with their coal-fired fryer, May 1973.

Judith Butler in 2021

‘School trip!’ enthusiastically declared my students when I told them earlier this week we were leaving off to Liverpool’s Walker Gallery. I’m such a fan of off site activities. It was defo welcomed as I enter another week with a cold and made all the better when 1 student told me ‘they loved it’!

It’s amazing to think that my 1st lecturing gig saw me use acetate sheets&overhead projectors & not 15 years later I’m being asked to increase my AI capabilities through an institutional AI Academy &chatbot. I can’t help feeling that somewhere there is a grumpy male academic rolling in their grave.