On Good Friday 1917, Ivor Gurney took part in a failed attack that inspired his haunting and enigmatic poem ‘The Silent One’. A few years ago, I worked out where the attack took place and who the poem might have been about.

Coventry Cathedral, Good Friday 1943, by Miriam S Garratt. © The rights holder (Art.IWM ART LD 7521)

As most of you know, I am writing a book about female cultures of drinking in C20th. Have come across some incredible work by @clairedavey.bsky.social on sober women's resistance to alcohol marketing. If anyone knows how I can contact her for an interview, please reply! www.joannabourke.com

Thanks Brexit Part 9,123,563.

Easter hint: the bell from a Lindt chocolate bunny is perfect for your darling psychopathic bird murderer.

🥚Egg-citing Easter acquisition 🚗

*clears through for best marketing voice* The kindle edition of Jungle Commandos is currently just £3.99 on Amazon. In the book, I made it my mission to share the incredible achievements of not just 3 Commando Brigade but the men of the Indian and African divisions who fought alongside them

The Air Warden, 1942, by Martin Hardie, 8 April 1942. IWM (Art.IWM ART LD 6622)

RIP the great Glen Baxter.

To congenial character defamation...

To Arts and Crafting...

From Cutting Culinary Wit...

Sad news for the cartoon world today, Glen Baxter, one of my longtime favorites, stopped scribbling on March 29... Here are two of his works in situ @newberrylibrary.bsky.social... #RIP

Men of the Coldstream Guards patrol through Arras, 1 September 1944. IWM (BU 254), Sgt Laing, AFPU

I've just finished the first book of this trilogy 'A London Child of the Seventies' which describes the author's idyllic childhood but it has an ending as tragic as it is unexpected.

#OTD 110 years ago, presumably to protect them from being publicly shamed, the 'Dudley Chronicle' was listing not only men who had successfully enlisted in the Army, but also those rejected as unfit (27/3/1916).

The last individual we want to highlight this month from the Usk Gaol books is Hannah Maria Thomas who was 11 years old and living in Pond Row Street, Rhymey when she was arrested in 1871.

Harold A. Livingston, I approve of your bookplate. (archive.org/details/secr...)

'S' turns the corner, 'B' takes the lead. 'A' watches 'B' till its safe to proceed. From a Second World War MI5 manual for 'Watchers'. Source: discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C1...

If you have to ask...

Read the story of Nelson's Çelenk.

Atrocity fact of the day: At the memorial for the My Lai Massacre, the site of the mass-shooting in the ditch that was carried out by Calley and Meadlo (and others) is off by approx 50 meters. The actual site is just outside the memorial and the ditch itself has long since been covered up.

#OTD 24 March 1918, on the fourth day of the German offensive, British horse teams ride forward to pull out their guns while stores and huts are burned, Omiecourt, France. Photo by Thomas Aitken. Source: www.iwm.org.uk/collections/...

D-Day, 0300 hours, interrogation hut, Warrant Officer George Lindenberg, by Stella Bowen. AWM ART26266

1916, MI5's Claude Dansey explains how to covertly security classify someone by the style of the date written in their passport: 1/6/16 = no reasonable doubt. 1-6-16 = doubtful but no definite information. 1-VI-16 = definitely suspect or Black Listed. (UK National Archives KV 1/31)

Woohoo! The Long, Long Trail website is celebrating 30 years of existence! #ww1 #genealogy

The knitted WW2 tour of UK continues.

Trouvaille du jour : un exemplaire d’artiste du grand classique "Le cabaret de la Belle Femme" de Roland Dorgelès, accompagné de lithographies d’Edmond Lajoux.

I did drop a massive clue.

Omelettes with Len Deighton and @nigelslater.bsky.social in The Observer today.

Watching One Battle After Another this evening and I hadn't heard this for at least 40 years but somehow knew every word.

Wait for it...

Camouflaged Soldiers, by Edward Ardizzone. IWM (Art.IWM ART LD 1281)

That end-of-novel-comedown-feeling.

Shirley's discovery that the back garden is somehow connected to the bedroom has shattered her understanding of the space-time continuum.

#OTD 21 March 1924, this was the Tourist Office, Arras, France. (Rol Press Agency via Gallica gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/b...)

A simple document warning that the long-awaited cataclysm was imminent. 'Stand By' message received by the 9th Cheshires at 5.35am on the first day of the German 'Kaiserschlacht' offensive, 21 March 1918. (UK National Archives WO95/2079)

England today.

The challenge is to choose 20 books that greatly influenced you. One book per day, for 20 days. No explanations, no reviews. Just covers. 20/20 #booksky #bookchat

Len Deighton's "Bomber" is not only an absolutely terrific book, it has the interesting distinction of being the first novel written on a word processor.

RIP Len Deighton

RIP Len Deighton

I didn't expect to find underneath the dust jacket that I'd bought an uncorrected proof (and I don't think that the seller had checked).

Every naval and military historian everywhere is currently writing tomorrow's #OTD 18 March 1915 Lessons from History megathread/Substack/YouTube.

The interminable quiz is finally mirroring my own academic career.

I hadn't listened to a complete Desert Island Discs for about twenty years until the Jessie Buckley episode last week.

Is it giving away too much to say that this type of cavalry helmet is known as a 'Tarleton'?

Help please! I’m hoping to find a digitised copy of Marie Harrison’s novel ‘The Woman Alone’ (1914) but it’s not in the usual places. @stephanieseul.bsky.social @sarahjlonsdale.bsky.social

This is very cool. My primary school in Kent still had its air raid shelter beneath it, reached via a mysterious blocked-up entrance in the playground. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...