My book club book this month is Kate Folk’s Sky Daddy.After 1 chapter I had to switch from reading to listening. I really don’t know how I’m going to speed listen to 3 more hours of the protagonists lusts for planes & desire to marry one in a crash. I fear I might never see planes in the same light.

'Underground' (1932) by Thomas Cantrell Dugdale (Walker Art Gallery)

Had a really lovely day reconnecting with my book project by reading chapters I’ve already written and going through some copy editor comments. I was by good weather and my cat. I can tell that my brain is starting to sparkle with book thoughts now marking has ended!

Here’s a really lovely 2 min segment about how a Port Sunlight bakery is making current buns from a nearly 100 year recipe discovered in the archive. The local lady journalist invited women to share recipes to rival Eccles cakes for the newspapers lady’s page in 1929. www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

I’ve had a really lovely afternoon making a snakes and ladders styled board game focusing on the joys and pressures of being a neurodivergent historian. I haven’t finished it yet, but lots of fun was had and it a lovely brain break. A real reminder that being creative is good for the soul…

I’ve left my fav marking to the end: the #unessay. I’m not finished yet, but I’m hearted by what has been produced. To offset AI, I emphasised crafting&ran a creative writing workshop with a novelist. It’s kinda showing positives: I’ve marked sewing projects, art, music &short writing pieces etc.

I visited @nationaltrust.org.uk’s Standen House in West Sussex over the weekend. Famous for being an arts & craft interiors, it was the handmade bedspread that I thought was wonderful. It was sewn in 1898 for the marriage of Maria Hope&Charles Jones. Corner says ‘Fair thoughts be your sweet pillow’

I visited Berwick Church in Sussex Downs yesterday and saw Bloomsbury artist paintings including Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant. It was decorated in 1944, with local people posing for religious scenes. It was quite striking to stand in a medieval church looking at 1940s decoration.

I'm in @theobserveruk.bsky.social today looking at why so many unis are in financial trouble and what the government needs to do to save HE. observer.co.uk/news/columni...

Term is done and dusted. I’ve had such a splendid finial teaching day which has included a creative writing workshop with a Liverpool novelist, a ghost walking tour, some bunches of flowers and a couple of thank you letters and cards. All helped by the glorious sunshine…

I’ve printed of my dissertations and done that thing where you head to the acknowledgements. I always find them the most joyful of things to read. Somehow they always capture something that’s missing from module evaluations. This one is especially was delightful to my teacher’s soul…

I had a third year tell me how much they loved a chocolate cake I made them in their second year. I was told this TWICE and I heard them reminiscence about it to their friends so my class prep yday was making a large batch for class today. None of them are left….

Just finished marking some lovely research papers from my 3rd year students taking my Victorian Cities modules. My v impassioned discussions on washing lines & separately on working-class mantlepieces has yield 4 essays on these topics. I must have been especially zealous in my lecture this year!

It’s been really hard to put Evan’s The Correspondent down this weekend. I thoroughly enjoyed it, even if it was sometimes hard to like the cranky 70-year-old protagonist, Sybil, whose 12 year correspondence drives the novel. Still it’s a touching read (&confirms how much I like epistolary novels).

Ruskin Spear (British, 1911-1990). Cat in a cardboard box (oil on board).

Is there anything more stressful then having ALL your library books recalled and being told that you can only keep them once they’ve been physically presented to a librarian. I’m now rummaging through all my shelves trying to figure out where that book I took out 9 years ago might possibly be….🤭

A little awestruck at the man standing confidentially on the house opp me roof’s ridge. Reminds me of this c1920 image St Jude’s Church, Whitechapel, being pulled down & a worker posed by standing on a spires pillar. Also caught washing drying from Toynbee Hall’s gatehouse, which is FABULOUS.

'Grey Day, Golborne Road' by Howard Milton panterandhall.com

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.