Category Archives: This sceptred isle

The school sports day is approaching and tutor groups discussed who from their groups would represent their house in a day of competitive athletics. A spirit of rivalry quickly emerged, no-one wanted to allow anyone to enter who did not … Continue reading →

It was on this day, 8th June 1949, that George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four was published. Terminally ill, he died seven months later, an Orwell who lived into a ripe old age might have felt there was a depressing familiarity … Continue reading →

The church door was locked. Church doors seem locked most of the time now. Perhaps it is some restriction related to the virus, or perhaps the person who once opened and closed the church each day has had, through age … Continue reading →

Widows were a constant feature of village life as a child. Sometimes they were war widows, one lady had survived a Japanese prison camp, her husband had not survived. Others seemed to have husbands who had returned, but who did … Continue reading →

It was on this day in 1536 that Henry VIII married Jane Seymour, the third of his six wives. On Friday, a song about Henry’s wives came down the corridor from one of the history classrooms, “Divorced, beheaded, died. Divorced, … Continue reading →