Buildings expert James Wright to speak in Market Harborough

The award-winning buildings archaeologist James Wright will be speaking in Market Harborough on 12 March.

Organised by the Market Harborough Historical Society, the event takes place at the Methodist Church Hall in Northampton Road. It begins at 7.30pm, and if you're not a society member there's a £4 charge on the door.

James has two decades' professional experience of ferreting around in people’s cellars, hunting through their attics and digging up their gardens. He hopes to discover how ordinary and extraordinary folk lived their lives in the mediaeval period. 

He is the author of the popular Mediaeval Mythbusting blog and his book Historic Building Mythbusting will be available to at the meeting:

The book is a deep dive into commonly believed and repeated stories about historic buildings. Nine themes will be investigated in detail, the myths will be debunked, underlying truths revealed, and there will be a look at how and why the tales developed in the first place.

James Wright said: “Go to any mediaeval building in the land and there will be interesting, exciting and romantic stories presented to the visitor. They are commonly believed and widely repeated – but are they really true?” He goes on to say: “These stories include those of secret passages linking ancient buildings, spiral staircases in castles giving advantage to right-handed defenders, ship timbers used in the construction of buildings on land, blocked doors in churches which are thought to keep the Devil out, and claims to be the oldest pub in the country. Delightful as these tales are, they can be a tad misleading in some cases and absolute myths in others.”

For example, tales of hidden tunnels are often connected to the Reformation and an emerging cultural identity which was suspicious of Catholicism. The spiral staircase myth was invented in 1902 by an art critic obsessed with spirals, left-handedness, and fencing – it is intricately bound up with the Victorian obsession with militarism. Ship timber yarns can be linked to the ideals of a seafaring nation. Blocked doors in churches are connected to forgotten processions on church feast days. The book even looks at the archaeological evidence which points to the possible identification of what may genuinely be the oldest pub in the land.

Understanding the truths behind the myths is just one part of this book – it will also seek to understand how those tales came to be.

This book links folklore, history, art, architecture, archaeology, sociology, and psychology to delve into the myths surrounding many mysterious features in mediaeval buildings. We can learn so much of value about a society through what it builds. By explaining the development of myths and the underlying truths behind them, a broader and deeper understanding of historic buildings can bring us that little bit closer to their former occupants. Sometimes the realities hiding behind the stories are even more interesting, romantic, and exciting than the myth itself…

Robert Jenrick: In the real world, If you lie about your CV you resign

Rachel Reeves and Jonathan Reynolds have been embarrassed in recent days by inaccuracies in their CVs on LinkedIn.

And these were perfectly valid stories for the media to investigate, even if what they have found looks to have been overhyped, at least in Reeves's case.

But one man was in no doubt that these stories were serious: step forward Robert Jenrick - you can see his tweet above.

Which makes this story from the Mirror rather amusing:

Ambitious Tory Robert Jenrick has been forced to correct his own CV - after accusing Labour politicians of embellishing theirs.

In a biography on his website, Mr Jenrick claims to have been "the joint youngest Cabinet Minister since the Second World War, tied with Harold Wilson and William Hague" when he was made Housing Secretary in 2019.

But he was 37 at the time he was elevated to the cabinet, while Wilson and Hague were 31 and 34 respectively when reaching Cabinet minister status.

Thanks to Peter Black for flagging it up.

Labour MP jailed as former Reform Wales leader is charged with accepting bribes to aid Russia

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It's been a busy day in the courts for politicians, writes our legal affairs correspondent.

First, the Independent (formerly Labour) MP for Runcorn and Helsby, Mike Amesbury, was jailed for 10 months after punching a constituent in the street.

As Amesbury has been imprisoned, a recall petition can now be launched to remove him from the Commons if he doesn't do the decent thing.

Then Nathan Gill, who was a UKIP and later a Brexit Party MEP between 2014 and 2020, and briefly the leader of Reform Wales after that, appeared in court accused of accepting bribes to make statements in the European Parliament that would benefit Russia.

The Crown said the alleged offences were carried out during his time as an MEP and before the UK left the European Parliament, on 31 January 2020.

Gill was granted bail on the condition that he surrenders his passport and does not obtain international travel documents nor contact his co-accused, the retired Ukrainian politician Oleg Voloshyn.

Industrial steam locomotives at Beckton Gas Works

Operating between 1870 to 1976, Beckton Gas Works was variously described as "the largest such plant in the world" and "the largest gas works in Europe". 

After it closed, it became a favourite shooting location for films, television and music videos. Most notably, some of the Vietnam battle scenes in Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket were shot there.

But while it was open it has an extensive railway network and its own steam locomotives. The atmospheric scenes in the video above were shot in the Sixties.

The site has largely been redeveloped - part of its railway system was taken over as a route by the Docklands Light Railway,

h/t Joe Brown on Twitter.

Ruth Shaw (1937-2024): Doyenne of Liberalism in Sutton

Mourning the death of Adrian Slade the other day, I initially wrote that he was the Liberal Party's first councillor on the Greater London Council.

I should have known that Stanley Rundle had been the member for Richmond upon Thames before him, because I heard many tales of the contribution he made to local politics when I lived there in the early Eighties.

But I had not heard of Ruth Shaw, who represented Sutton and Cheam between 1973 and 1977.

Ruth died in 2024, and Sutton Liberal Democrats have a page celebrating her life - I have borrowed the photo here from it.

The page lists her lifetime of work for the Liberals and then Liberal Democrats:

Ruth was one of a small group of people who kept the Liberal Party alive in Sutton & Cheam through the lean years of the 1950s. She: 

• was a founder member of Sutton & Cheam Young Liberals in 1950; 

• was the first ever Liberal councillor on Sutton & Cheam Borough Council in 1961 (finally winning a seat on her seventh attempt); 

• was elected to the GLC in 1973 to represent Sutton and Cheam, one of only two Liberals on the council. She put her victory down to "community politics" and the party's opposition to the Ringway 3 project. She was given a place on the GLC's transport committee; 

• was the first (and last!) Liberal Greater London Councillor for Sutton & Cheam 1973-77; 

• was Sutton councillor for Worcester Park North 1986 to 1990 and North Cheam 1990 to 2002; 

• was named an Honorary Alderman by Sutton Council in 2011; 

• held most Local Party offices, including Chair and President.

The page also records what Ruth said to the Sutton Guardian when she was awarded and OBE for her services to politics:

"I didn't see this coming at all.I was  absolutely astonished and obviously very pleased. To get this recognition is wonderful although I don't even feel like I've done all that much - although I must have been doing something right. 

"I just believed liberalism was the right way to go. In the '50s people on the doorstep told me it had no future but I couldn't see it that way. Now the Liberal Democrats have been in power here for more than 25 years."

It's obvious that Ruth's early work in Sutton and Cheam did much to make Graham Tope's victory in the 1973 Westminster by-election there possible.

St Vincent: New York

St Vincent - the American singer-songwriter Annie Clarke - has featured here before. New York is a track from her fifth studio album, Masseduction, which came out in 2017.

Laura Snapes reviewed it on Pitchfork:

Presumably the first single from her forthcoming fifth album as St. Vincent ... it surprises by totally forsaking her cosmic guitar playing for simple piano, which blooms beneath her laments for the lost accomplice who made NYC more than just a pile of old bricks. 

Maybe it’s her noted hero Bowie, though Clark’s yearning, gasped entreats suggests a deeper intimacy than distant admiration: “So much for a home run with some blue blood,” she sighs, ruing the loss of “the only motherfucker in the city who can stand me” (possibly the highest compliment a New Yorker can pay).

The radio version of the song - New York did turn out to be the first single from that album - cleverly changes this to "other sucker".

Reader's voice: But do we need swearing at all? I mean, Paul Simon didn't write The Only Living Motherfucker in New York, did he?

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Emma Burnell reviews Get In by Patrick Maguire and Gabriel Pogrund, and ponders the limitations of the Morgan McSweeney approach to politics: "All too often the project behind Starmer - and McSweeney in particular - seem not to see this. That poor culture and poor behaviour are poor in and of themselves – not excusable when it’s 'one of us' exhibiting it."

"Johnson and Truss at least had the grubby excuse that sucking up to MAGA Americans might be in their own financial interest - for the US market for disgraced former British PMs can be a lucrative one, there being no shortage of wealthy fools there happy to be taken for a ride. Jenrick did not even have that excuse. Nor, of course, does Kemi Badenoch, the party’s actual current leader." Alex Massie is merciless in his dissection of the rotting of the Conservative mind.

The government's agenda for local government is all about size and centralisation, but Jessica Studdert sees a "new local" emerging that involves power, prevention and place.

Daniel Jones and Martin Durham on the role of women in the British Union of Fascists: "If fascist policies were often reactionary or ambiguous, they were not always so. Like almost every other political force in the thirties, the BUF wanted to win newly enfranchised women as supporters and voters, and felt it necessary to put forward policies that would alleviate and improve the conditions of women’s lives."

Rafael Behr argues that Bridget Jones 4: Mad About the Boy is an allegory of the current political crisis. Hear him: "Her heartbreak is a parable of political bereavement, describing liberal angst at the sudden unravelling of institutional and legal norms underpinning European security. (Plus sex and jokes.)"

Ampleforth Abbey has become the latest site to join the Dark Skies Friendly Community scheme run by the North York Moors National Park, reports Yorkshire Bylines.

The Making of Gone to Earth 3

With the world becoming a scarier place, it's time to return to the Shropshire hills and some more behind-the-scenes footage of the making of Gone to Earth. This is the Powell and Pressburger film adapted from the novel by Mary Webb.

This video starts with Cyril Cusack baptising Jennifer Jones at Lords Hill Chapel, which stands above the lead-mining village of Snailbeach on the Stiperstones. Later there are shots of David Farrar on his horse, Jones chatting to local children who are extras in the film, and of a horse race. When this appears in the film, Ludlow Castle is in the background.

If you want to know more about the Shropshire locations used in Gone to Earth, you could start at Reelstreets. Then you could explore the relevant material on The Powell & Pressburger Pages.

Why did Labour lose two of the three seats in Leicester in the middle of a landslide?

Leicester was an exception at last year's general election. Labour lost two of the city's three seats - one to the Conservatives and one to an Independent.

Alistair Jones. associate professor in politics at De Montfort University, looks at those results and at Leicester politics in general in the current issue of Liberator:

All three Leicester parliamentary constituencies have been treated akin to personal fiefdoms by previous Labour MPs, going back to the 1980s and 1990s. Consequently, the central and regional party had held little sway. In 2023 and 2024, the central Labour Party decided to reassert its authority, regardless of the short-term electoral cost. 

Leicester may be one city but it has three parliamentary constituencies which rarely communicate with each other, even – or is it especially – when all three MPs come from the same party. That local infighting has left a rather nasty legacy for the Labour Party, which is being exploited and exacerbated with allegations of racism. 

To read his article, download the current Liberator (issue 427) from the magazine's website - there's no charge.

I'm far too modest to point out that, in November 2023, I wrote:

The Conservatives have been gaining ground in local elections in this part of the city, which means that the seat [Leicester East] is less safe for Labour than it looks on paper. And that means the question of whether Vaz, Webbe or both of them will stand as an Independent at the next election really matters.

Anas Sarwar and Scottish Labour find a new inspiration: Elon Musk

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This morning Elon Musk's attack on Volodymyr Zelensky was in the news. Here's the Independent:

Elon Musk has accused Volodymyr Zelensky of "feeding off the dead bodies of Ukrainian soldiers" as the Trump administration continues ferociously lashing out at the Ukrainian president.

The Tesla owner wrote on his X site, without evidence, that Zelensky is "despised by the people of Ukraine" in a post that refuted Kyiv’s claims that the president has a 57 per cent approval rating. Earlier this week Trump had claimed that the Ukraine leader had an approval rating of '4 per cent'.

"If Zelensky was actually loved by the people of Ukraine, he would hold an election. He knows he would lose in a landslide, despite having seized control of ALL Ukrainian media, so he canceled the election,” the tech billionaire wrote.

Anas Sarwar, the leader of Scottish Labour, was making his speech to his party conference today. Did he take the opportunity to condemn Musk's foul slur?

Not exactly. Over to the Daily Record:

Anas Sarwar has echoed Donald Trump and Elon Musk by announcing Scottish Labour's own plans for a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

The Scottish Labour leader said that he would create the department because of "the SNP's wasteful incompetence". He pointed to the ferry scandal at the £1 billion new Barlinnie jail.

Unless things at Holyrood are much worse than I've heard, it's not true that the Scottish government has provided Barlinnie with its own ferry. I'll be charitable and put this error down to the Record rather than Sarwar.

Anyway, he went on:

That’s why we will have our own Department of Government Efficiency to stop the waste and deliver value for money for you, the taxpayer. And that value for money will extend to every part of government."

He continued: "I can tell you now that as First Minister, I will end this culture of waste, respect people’s hard-earned money and get value for every penny."

I get it that Labour wants to attack the SNP's record in government. But why, even before his remark about Zelensky, drag Musk into it? It's not as though he's popular with British voters.

Perhaps Sarwar has a secret crush on him? Perhaps a teenage spin doctor thought they were being clever by hooking the speech to something already in the news?

Or perhaps we're right to conclude that Labour no longer believes in much beyond getting into power.

Memorial to five schoolboys killed by mine on Swanage beach to be unveiled in May

A new memorial to the five schoolboys killed by a mine on Swanage beach in 1955 will be unveiled on 10 May from 10.30am. The event will take place in front of the War Memorial in Swanage, and a short service will also be held in memory of the boys.

I came across the story last year when I found a folder of press cuttings I had saved back in the Nineties - think of them as pre-internet bookmarks. Today's news comes from the gofundme page set up to raise money for a new memorial.

Mike Martin: More likely than not, we'll be involved in a war by 2030

If you thought yesterday's quotation from Charles Masterman on July 2014 was bad, you won't want to read Mike Martin in The Big Issue.

Here's the opening of the magazine's interview with the Liberal Democrat MP for Tunbridge Wells:

"I’ve been sitting in private committee briefings with senior officials, and they say there’s a good chance we’ll be in a war before the next election. I think that’s right, that’s my view,” Mike Martin, the Liberal Democrat MP for Tunbridge Wells, elected to parliament in the 2024 election, tells me. “There’s certainly more than a 50 per cent chance we’ll be involved in a war before 2030."

Great. This is the prediction of a politician with more than a passing interest in military matters. Martin is a former British Army officer who served multiple tours of Afghanistan, picked up a PhD in war studies and has authored books including 2023's How to Fight a War.

It’ll all be professional soldiers and drones though, you might think. A modern war for modern times. "Obviously if we got into a big war, we’d have conscription straight away," says Martin. The Ukraine war has shown how, despite all the high-tech advances, modern wars still involve soldiers digging trenches like they did in the First World War. 

“Would we need to conscript? Yeah, we would. Because ultimately, we’re not at a stage yet where you can replace people with drones,” says Martin. “We’re a long way off from that. Drones are fine, as far as they go, but you still need people to occupy villages, hold ground, and all the rest of it. And that’s not going to change for quite some time.”

The great danger, as I see it, is that British troops form part of an inadequate peacekeeping force in Ukraine, while Russia misses no opportunity to draw that force into skirmishes. Meanwhile, the US sits on the sidelines and Trump makes interventions that are sympathetic to Russia.

Trouble is, at present that seems to be the sort of peacekeeping force most likely to emerge.

Huey Long (1893-1935): The populist Democrat from Louisiana

Huey Long, who was governor of Louisiana from 1928 to 1932 and one of its senators until his assassination in 1935, was mentioned here the other day.

He was a populist Democrat, but unlike Donald Trump he really did care for the people of the state and was prepared to take on big business. Comparison to Lyndon Baines Johnson, another who used the political dark arts to progress a laudable agenda, might be more enlightening.

This video takes you through Long's career and the cases for and against him.

A reminder of Nigel Farage's slavish adoration of Donald Trump

There are whispers that Nigel Farage intends to row back from his support for Donald Trump. So here's a reminder of the slavish adoration he has for years poured upon that grotesque figure.

You may also remember that Farage was once very keen on being filmed and photographed with British veterans of the second world war. But it seems none of them was as brave as Donald Trump.

Charles Masterman on how it feels as a world war approaches

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I don't want to alarm anyone, but here's an extract from an article looking back on the coming of the first world war that Charles Masterman wrote for the Daily Chronicle in 1915:

It was a company of tired men who for twelve hot summer nights, without rest or relaxation, had devoted their energies to avert this thing which had now come inevitably to pass. No one who has been through the experience of those twelve days will ever be quite the same again. 

It is difficult to find a right simile for that experience. It was like a company of observers watching a little cloud in the east, appearing out of a blue sky, seeing it grow, day by day, until all the brightness had vanished and the sun itself has become obscured. 

It was like the victim of the old mediaeval torture enclosed in a chamber in which the walls, moved by some unseen mechanism, steadily closed on him day by day, until at the end he was crushed to death. 

It was most like perhaps those persons who have walked on the solid ground and seen slight cracks and fissures appear, and these enlarge and run together and swell in size hour by hour until yawning apertures revealed the boiling up beneath them of the earth's central fires, destined to sweep away the forests and vineyards of its surfaces and all the kindly habitations of man.

And all this experience - the development of a situation heading straight to misery and ruin without precedent - was continued in the midst of a world where the happy, abundant life of the people flowed on unconcerned and all thoughts were turned towards the approaching holidays and the glories of triumphant summer days.

Alistair Carmichael marks 75th anniversary of Jo Grimond’s election

Alistair Carmichael is the latest guest on Iain Dale's All Talk podcast, talking about his own career and about the former Liberal Party leader Jo Grimond. 

The Liberals and then Liberal Democrats have held the Orkney and Shetlands seat ever since Grimond won it at the 1950 election.

Thanks to Caron Lindsay for flagging this up on Lib Dem Voice - follow that link to see a photograph of a very young Alistair. He is his usual engaging self in the podcast.

I never met Jo Grimond. The nearest I came to it was in the 1983 general election, when he did a public meeting for us in Kew. Being a good activist, I went canvassing instead - and there were no certificates and medals from Mark Pack in those days.

He gave his speech, I was told later, and then said, looking at the timetable he'd been given:

"It says 'Questions' here, but as I'm stone deaf these days, that's no use. I'll just come round the hall and meet you all."

And so he did, charming everybody.

But I did meet Laura Grimond, a significant figure in the party in her own right in her day, and also the wife of Jo, daughter of Violent Bonham Carter, the gender-fluid gangster even the Krays feared Violet Bonham Carter and granddaughter of Mr Asquith.

She came to Market Harborough a couple of times in the Eighties, and I've found a photo from those days in the British Newspaper Archive. It shows Laura Grimond, Phil Knowles (the current leader of Harborough District Council) and me. One day I'll share it with you.

From the eastern portal of Woodhead tunnel towards Sheffield

This is the first of a series of four videos from the Trekking Exploration account - like, share and follow now!

That series follows the former Woodhead route from the eastern portal of Woodhead tunnel to Deepcar, which good trains from Sheffield reached until recently

I don't intend posting all four here , but you can find them on YouTube.

When I posted a Trekking Exploration video of the line on the other side of Woodhead tunnel last year, I wrote:

At Penistone you could watch a constant stream of goods trains taking coal from the South Yorkshire coalfield to a power station at Widnes or returning empty.

The class 76 locomotives were unique to this line and you could tell they had been designed in the 1930s, before the war put a temporary stop to electrification.

And I did manage to ride on the whole route shortly before it closed. In the winter of 1980/1 the Hope Valley line, the alternative way to Manchester that all Sheffield trains now use, closed for engineering works on Sundays and passenger services were diverted via Woodhead.

Tory MP Neil O'Brien praises J.D. Vance's speech

I thought Vance's spech was good - a provocative but thought-provoking prod for us in Europe - 'what are you trying to defend'? https://t.co/fGAXgDR3DE

— Neil O'Brien (@NeilDotObrien) February 15, 2025

Neil O'Brien is my MP - the Conservative MP for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston. On Saturday he shared his thoughts on J.D. Vance's speech in Munich.

I could construct an argument that he has to talk like this to hang on to his shadow ministerial (not shadow cabinet) post. He was at one time close to Kemi Badenoch, but backed Robert Jenrick in last years's Tory leadership contest, and she does not strike me as one to forget a slight in a hurry.

But I'm more inclined to conclude that he now believes this stuff. How the Conservative Party has fallen.

It's quite hard to find the full text of the speech, but RealClear Politics has it.

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Donald Trump has launched a full-frontal assault on liberal democracy. So, argues, William Wallace (rightly, I think), we have no choice but to increase taxation.

Dani Garavelli writes on the suicide of a 16-year-old in state custody: "At some point on Saturday or early Sunday, he wrote three long letters to his family. 'It's night-time now,' he wrote. 'I've only been in here for two sleeps.' 'Been crying a lot'; 'Everyone’s terrorising me'; 'Please help me.' Then he hanged himself from the top bunk."

"Now we appear to have a secret request by the home secretary to Apple by the British government to have, in the words of the Washington Post, 'a blanket capability to view fully encrypted material, not merely assistance in cracking a specific account, [which] has no known precedent in major democracies'." Alan Rusbridger says it’s time to say no to the government spying on our secrets.

Miranda Bailey listens to a university vice-chancellor try to defend the cuts to her institution.

Paul Casciato has some good news: "Research published in the journal Bird Study, found that - hectare for hectare - solar farms situated in agriculturally dominated East Anglia contained a greater number of bird species and overall number of individuals than surrounding arable land."

"As hotel proprietor-cum-town accountant Urquhart (Dennis Lawson) makes clear, it’s easy for outsiders to romanticize a place that’s difficult to survive in. Forsyth derisively referred to this concept in the wider culture as 'the Brigadoon thing'." Sara Batkie marks the 40th 42nd anniversary of the release of Local Hero.

Ed Davey calls for parliament to be recalled over Ukraine

Ed Davey has demanded a recall of parliament so it can debate the possible deployment of British troops in a peacekeeping force in Ukraine.

The Politico website quotes him as saying:

"Keir Starmer should bring back Parliament to debate his plans to support Ukraine.

"We have just days for the U.K. to lead in Europe and save Ukraine from a shoddy deal cooked up by Trump and Putin."

Politico says this comes from an interview of theirs with Davey, but I can't find it on the website.

Later in this report we read:

Davey ... offered flexibility about the timing of any vote, but insisted a check by parliament is needed as Starmer presses ahead.

Asked if it was essential that MPs should get a vote before any troops head to Ukraine, Davey said it was !too early to say. We’ve always been happy with retrospective votes. It’s about getting the balance right between Parliament making its voice heard and government doing what it thinks it needs to in order to protect the realm."

Davey said he welcomed Starmer attending Macron’s mini-summit in Paris on Monday as a good start. "But we need to do even more," he said. "For instance, it is time that the UK and Europe look at spending frozen Russian assets on protecting Ukraine."

Ed is often to be heard calling for a recall of parliament - he's as fond of recalls as the England cricket selectors were when I was a boy - but this time he is surely right.

If the US is no longer prepared to underwrite the security of Western Europe, then we are entering a new and frightening world. Our politicians going to have to step up and, in the case of the Conservative front bench, grow up.

I don't believe that Russia has designs on Western Europe, but it is an imperialist power with a near racist belief that anyone who speaks Russian should be its subject. This means that in future the Baltic states, for instance, will be in serious danger of a Russian invasion.

But then I was warning about Russian imperialism 20 years ago.

Later. The Liberal Democrat MP Mike Martin has also contributed his thoughts in a Twitter thread.

Debate in Welsh Lib Dems over supporting Labour's budget

The Nationalist news website Nation Cymru has been passed a copy of an email sent to all member in Wales by the leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats, Jane Dodds.

With Labour holding only 30 of the 60 Senedd seats, it needs the support of one more MS to get its 2025-6 Budget passed. 

Nation Cymru says Labour has been discussing with Ms Dodds, the only Lib Dem Senedd Member, what concessions it could make to secure her vote.

Jane sets out her thinking in the email, which you can read on the Nationl Cymru website (if you have not already received a copy yourself).

The website also quotes the inevitable "prominent Welsh Liberal Democrat" disagreeing with her approach:

"We should not be going into next year’s Senedd election having propped up a failing Labour government, That will not go down well with the electorate.

"It’s also pretty shocking that Jane Dodds is informing the party membership about what she intends to do rather than consulting us. At one time parties consulted their members before deciding on a course of action. That seems to be a thing of the past, certainly so far as the Welsh Lib Dems are concerned.

"This all started when Kirsty Williams was appointed to the Cabinet as Education Minister. She may have been a good minister, but her position in government did nothing for the party."

Jane Dodds was in the news last November, when Ed Davey hinted that she should resign over her part in the mishandling of allegations of abuse made against the late Bishop of Chester, Hubert Whitsey.

She did not act on his hint, but earlier this month she agreed that she had let survivors of abuse down.

More outreach post offices closed in the Shropshire hills

Keeping up this blog's practice of covering "random news items from Shropshire (where he doesn’t live) - New Statesman", here is Shropshire Live:

Post Office Limited has announced the unplanned closure of hosted outreach services in Minsterley, Hope, and Shawbury.

They say the closure, from this week, is due to unforeseen circumstances preventing the Pontesbury postmaster from continuing to operate these outreach locations.

Last year,  nearby Marton, Longden, Stiperstones and Wentnor lost their weekly outreach post offices.

Reader's voice: And the rather plain building above?

Liberal England replies: That's Hope village hall, where the outreach post office was housed. Find me another blogger - or podcaster, come to that - who has a photo of it.

A true US populist would support vaccination in poorer communities

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Republican politicians from the poorer states are already having doubts about Trump and his team. This is from the Guardian:

Bill Cassidy, the Republican US senator, has said his home state of Louisiana’s recent decision to cancel the promotion of mass vaccination against preventable diseases is a disservice to parents who want to keep their children healthy.

Nonetheless, before those remarks, the medical doctor-turned-politician who has clashed with Donald Trump joined 51 of his fellow Republicans in voting to confirm anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist Robert F Kennedy Jr as secretary of the US’s health and human services department.

This led me to wonder how Huey Long (1893-1935), the populist governor of, and then senator for, Louisiana, approached vaccination. 

The answer is to be found on a website devoted to his memory and career:

Through the Board of Health, Long tripled funding for public healthcare. The state’s free health clinics grew from 10 in 1926 to 31 in 1933, providing free immunizations to 67 per cent of the rural population.

I find Long a fascinating figure and, while I know we're supposed to disapprove of populism, I miss the days when it was part of the varied ideology behind community politics. 

Liberals then saw themselves as the people who looked after the run-down end of the borough and who made Town Hall listen to local residents.

But then much of our campaigning at the last election  - on the health and on water - had an element of populism. But has the Conservatives had succeeded in uniting pretty much the entire nation against them on these issues, it was hard to accuse us of being divisive.

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Amanda Litman argues that it's time for the ageing leadership of the US Democrats to stand down: "While their wisdom and experience have value, and while some can certainly still hold their own, the septuagenarian and octogenarian class of Democratic leaders - predominantly older white men—are by and large ill-equipped for this crisis we have found ourselves in."

How do radical ideas go mainstream? Alice Evans studies the women's magazines of the 1970s to help her understand the rise of feminism.

How well did Queen Elizabeth II get along with her prime ministers? Rebecca Cope has the answers: "It would be easy to think that as a Labour Party leader from a northern middle-class background, Harold Wilson would not have gotten on well with the Queen, but quite the opposite was true. A regular at Balmoral, he was frequently asked on picnics with the wider family, and reportedly enjoyed the informality of the occasion, mucking in to help clear up after the Duke of Edinburgh’s famous barbeques."

Ellie Robson on the philosopher Mary Midgley: "In the 1950s, the philosopher Mary Midgley did something that, according to philosophical orthodoxy, she wasn’t supposed to do. In a BBC radio script for the Third Programme (the precursor of BBC Radio 3), she dared to point out that almost all the canonical figures in philosophy’s history had been unmarried men."

Writing in Country Life of all places, Lewis Winks demolishes the case against allowing wild camping on Dartmoor.

Michael Wood goes to the movies and thinks about Brady Corbet’s films: "How brutal or damaging does your childhood have to be to make you a great dictator or a memorable pop star? Are the connecting words ‘because of’ or ‘in spite of’? Or is there no causality here at all, just a sort of baffling coexistence? Are the films in love with an ugly idea of chance? This possibility seems especially relevant to The Brutalist."

John Major: The last Conservative statesman

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John Major was a figure of fun to many while he was prime minister, but compared to any leader the Conservative Party has come up with since, he is a titan.

Here he is talking about J.D. Vance's speech on the World at One earlier today:

That is not what we expect from the foremost nation in the free world. It’s certainly not statesmanship, and it potentially gives off very dangerous signals.

It’s extremely odd to lecture Europe on the subject of free speech and democracy at the same time as they’re cuddling Mr. Putin.

In Mr. Putin’s Russia, people who disagree with him disappear or die or flee the country, or, on the statistically unlikely level, fall out of high windows somewhere in Moscow.

You can listen to the whole thing on BBC Sounds - Major's interview begins at 12:20.

One interesting point Major makes is that his own father was brought up in the United States.

Cat Stevens: Matthew & Son

Cat Stevens was a big name in his early days, as both singer and a songwriter. He is one of the central figures of David Hepworth's 1971 – Never a Dull Moment: Rock’s Golden Year.

He even took Morning Has Broken from our school hymn book into the top 10.

My image of a male singer-songwriter of this era involves long hair and an acoustic guitar, and there are plenty of pictures like that of Cat Stevens. But here he is on a West German TV show in 1967 as a teenage dandy.

I have a couple of DVDs of performances from that show - Beat! Beat! Beat! Because its video tapes didn't get reused, its archives are a valuable record of this golden age of British pop and rock.

Cat Stevens was born Steven Demetre Georgiou to a Swedish mother and Greek Cypriot father in London. In the late Seventies he converted to Islam and left the music scene, returning 20 years later using the name Yusuf Islam.

Remembering Adrian Slade (1936-2025)

I knew that Adrian Slade had died because I saw we were discussing commissioning an obituary of him for the next Liberator. But I had not found any announcement of the sad news until this morning, when I saw this notice in The Times:

ADRIAN SLADE
Adrian died peacefully on 24th January 2025, aged 88. CBE, cabaret performer,adman and Liberal politician. Husband of Sue. Father of Nicola and Rupert. Much loved by friends and family.

The notice also links to a memorial page for him.

Discussing comedy with Adrian was one of the perks of helping out with production of Liberal Democrat News at party conference - I have mentioned his memories of Peter Cook, whom he auditioned for the Cambridge Footlights, here more than once.

But Adrian was also a politician. He won Richmond at the GLC elections of 1981, defeating Edward Leigh in the process. to become its only Liberal member.

What was impressive was how well known he was. When we went down to the bar after a Liberal meeting, there were always people who came up to him to sat hello or ask for advice. If Adrian had been the parliamentary candidate, we might well have won Richmond earlier than 1997.

That GLC victory was not without cost for Adrian, as the Conservatives contested the election lodged an election petition, contesting the result because of technical errors in Slade's return of expenses. The election result stood, but he was left with potentially ruinous legal expenses. His showbiz friends organised a comedy evening to help pay the bills - sadly the link in my post that told you who was there no longer works.

His experiences of Ken Livingstone were more pleasant. When he went to see Ken, the GLC leader as a new councillor, and was asked which committees he would like to be on. They then fell to discussing where Adrian should sit so as to upset the Tories most.

So farewell to Adrian Slade. We shan't see his like again.

Milton Jones: "My whole act is reverse engineered"

As I once wrote:

I love Milton Jones's comedy. He doesn't just use puns and word play. If that was all he did, he's be Tim Vine.

It's because every funny line of his creates an alternative world. And that world exists for a second or two on stage with him until its bubble bursts and it is no more.

Here Jones talks to the always likeable Rob Brydon about his career and approach to comedy.

The party's autumn conference is in Bournemouth this year. I doubt I'll have the self-control to resist stealing Jones's joke about the Japanese attack on Poole Harbour for Lord Bonkers.

Beavers return to Northamptonshire after 400-year absence

Rushden Lakes shopping centre is welcoming the first beavers to be seen in Northamptonshire for four centuries. 

Boudicca, Alan and their six kits - I don't know if there is a class system among beavers, but I can't shake off the suspicion that Boudicca married beneath herself - will be living in a 42-acre fenced enclosure there.

But if it's true that, following escapes from such enclosures, there are now hundreds of beavers living wild in Kent, it won't be long until Boudicca and Alan, or their friends and relations, turn up on the River Jordan here.

Anyway, Katie King-Hurst, education and communities manager for the Northamptonshire Wildlife Trust, told the BBC:

"They're incredible. "They ... create other habitats that the other animals thrive in. There's been a few beaver releases around England, but these beavers share their fences with a shopping centre with millions of visitors a year, so it really is an opportunity to see an inspirational species right on people's doorsteps."

It's the Liberal Democrats who are taking on Trump and Musk

Josh Graham writes on politics.co.uk:

The Lib Dems, after a historic general election campaign under Ed Davey’s buccaneering leadership secured 72 MPs, have found their voice in a crowded UK political scene as the prime critics of Trump’s revolution.

The Lib Dems have assumed this anti-MAGA mantle largely by default, that said. The Labour Party, a natural ideological opponent of Trumpism, has been silenced by its government duties and diplomatic responsibilities. The Conservative leadership has positioned itself as supportive of Trump’s general initiative. Nigel Farage’s Reform UK is MAGA’s British spin-off. Meanwhile, the Green party - whose criticism might even trump Davey’s - still struggles to cut through the Westminster noise.

The bottom line is this: political circumstance, on both sides of the Atlantic, has conspired to carve a neat niche for Ed Davey’s party - one it is excitedly exploiting.

The video shows the first of Ed Davey's two questions to the prime minister on Wednesday.

Nowhere to Go: Maggie Smith's first credited film role

Yesterday we saw the first television appearance by Julie Walters. Tonight it's Maggie Smith's first credited film role, which was in 1958.

Being Maggie Smith, she received what we'd today call a BAFTA nomination for it.

Talking Pictures TV showed it a couple of days ago, but it's not found its way to their catch-up channel TPTV Encore.

Nowhere to Go was the penultimate film made by Ealing Studios. With its jazz soundtrack and refusal to spell everything out for the viewer, it looked forward, not back.

You could call it 'Ealing Noir', and that's not a ridiculous concept. One of the best Ealing films, It Always Rains on Sunday, has a claim on the Noir label too.

In this trailer look for a brief glimpse of Andrée Melly, then Harry H. Corbett in the back of the car in his days as the British Brando (again, this is not a joke) and then we see Maggie Smith. Playing a rich girl looking for kicks, she lights up the screen.

You can find Nowhere to Go on a dodgy Russian site if you ask Google Videos, but I didn't tell you that, right?

If you watch it, here are three notes on the locations.

The disused railway platforms at the start are long since demolished. They were on the still operating North to East curve at Kew Bridge station.

When the villain and Maggie Smith arrive in Wales we see, not the Brecon Beacons, but Ivinghoe Beacon in Buckinghamshire. The chimneys do not belong to a steelworks in the valleys but to the old Tunnel Cement works at Pitstone.

And the big house is Gadebridge House, which was in Hemel Hempstead in Hertfordshire. It was demolished long ago, and its grounds now form Gadebridge Park in the new town.

The Joy of Six 1324

"For so long the US has been the core UK and European ally, the backbone of NATO, the largest contributor to the WHO, and the loudest voice in proudly proclaiming its democracy. It seems unbelievable to state baldly that the US is a threat to the global economy, to global health and to global stability. But it is, and the sooner this is acknowledged the better." Christine Pagel shows that Trump is following the playbook that has seen democracy die in other countries.

Nataliya Gumenyuk explains why Ukraine wants to fight on: "The horror of Russian military rule has been felt not only in areas of the south and east, where much of the war has been fought, but also near Kyiv in the opening weeks of the 2022 invasion, when Russian forces committed widespread atrocities in the capital’s suburbs."

"I have been very anxious to show that these young people are not 'problem young people,' but young people with problems." Richard Kemp reminds us that one of his key themes as Lord Mayor of Liverpool are the problems faced by care-leavers and many other disadvantaged children in the city.

So concern for the Welsh language scuppered a nuclear power station? Rubbish, says Dan Davies.

Brian Klaas on what Detectorists has to teach us about the meaning of life: "Throughout the show, the allure of money and valuable treasure lurks, but whenever it seduces the detectorists and they lose sight of their intrinsic motivation, their lives begin to fall apart, cursed by a momentarily conversion to the False Gospel."

Colin Yeo, an immigration lawyer, reviews Paddington in Peru.

Lib Dem bill challenges Labour's rabbit-in-the-headlights stance on dark money in British politics

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Manuela Perteghellas, the Liberal Democrat MP for Stratford-upon-Avon, yesterday tabled a private member's bill that would cap how much individuals and companies can give to political parties in the UK. It would also restrict the ability of foreign nationals to donate through UK-registered companies.

She told Byline Times:

Our politics has been exposed. It’s far too easy for those who don’t have our country’s national interest at heart, or who have made money through illicit means, to funnel dark money into British politics.

The bill would establish an independent committee to determine an appropriate cap on political donations for UK parties. It would also assess the impact of donation limits on political parties' ability to function, while ensuring legitimate political participation isn’t undermined.

You can read Manuela's full speech in Hansard - her bill is listed for debate on 16 May.

It stands no chance of being passed into law, but it will increase the pressure on Labour to change its rabbit-in-the-headlights stance on dark money in British politics.

Julie Walters' first screen appearance is on YouTube - and Don Warrington is in it too

A thousand thanks to the Classic British Telly YouTube account - like and subscribe - for posting this television play from 1975

Julie Walters, in her very first screen appearance, works behind the bar in a club, while the star is Don Warrington, already famous from Rising Damp. Their exchange about education looks forward to Walters' role in Educating Rita, and once again I am left mourning the disappearance of the single television play.

As Warrington was born in Trinidad and came to England at the age of six, it was a stretch for him to play a young Jamaican man newly arrived in Handsworth. But then, in Rising Damp. Philip knew no more of Africa than Rigsby did.

Club Havana was shot by the BBC at Pebble Mill Studios in Birmingham and screened as part of its series Second City Firsts. It was written by Barry Reckord, a pioneering Jamaican playwright whose work was widely produced in London.

I've heard of him because on of this blog's heroes, David Hemmings, appeared in his play Skyvers at the Royal Court in the early Sixties.

District council offices to host banking hub for Market Harborough

Market Harborough will have a banking hub by the end of this month, reports the Leicester Mercury.

While the search for its permanent home is concluded, it will be temporarily housed in the offices of Harborough District Council in the town.

My old friend Phil Knowles, who leads the Lib-Lab-Green coalition that runs the council, told the Mercury:

"Although lots of people do their banking online nowadays, there are many residents in the Harborough district who find this difficult, do not have internet access or prefer to do their banking in person. 

I have campaigned for a banking hub for Market Harborough for a while following the steady closure of high street banks in the town, and I’m delighted that the council has been able to assist with welcoming the new banking hub provided by Cash Access UK by hosting the hub temporarily in our council offices. 

I am looking forward to the banking hub opening for residents later this month."

Lloyds will close its Market Harborough branch at the end of March, leaving the town without a branch of any of the big four banks.

Politicians on children swimming in sewage

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Here's the latest from Tameside Radio:

A Tameside councillor married to disgraced MP Andrew Gwynne joked about youngsters swimming in human waste on the 'racist and sexist' Trigger Me Timbers WhatsApp group.

Allison Gwynne made the comments as members of the group joked about someone falling into filthy water.

She posted: "Kids in Denton have always enjoyed swimming in street rubbish/raw sewage'.

Allison Gwynne, as the Guardian has pointed out, is a significant local politician in her own right:

Allison Gwynne, who posted in the group about local children who have “always enjoyed swimming in street rubbish/raw sewage”, is understood to remain in her role as chair of the council’s overview panel – a position she is believed to have been awarded by Labour HQ.

When I heard that a Labour politician had talked of children swimming in sewage, my mind went back to a Conservative councillor from West Norfolk, Brian Long:

"When I spent my summers down at Northrepps and Cromer beach as a child, you could visibly see pipes that came out of the cliff side, staining all the way down and going straight into the sea," he said.

"Nobody was monitoring anything.

"We'd come out of the sea and have a cold shower to clean off before eating our sandwiches. I don't think anyone was harmed by it." 

Brian Long's remarks were silly rather than poisonous. He was looking back to a neverland where children had grazed knees, scrumped apples and got a clip round the ear from the local bobby. And, er, went swimming in sewage.

There was nothing in them of the contempt for people you see in Allison Gwynne. 

Class snobbery is alive and well on the right, but the left is more given to intellectual snobbery. Anyone who fails to share their political opinions is stupid. If you doubt me, just spend a few minutes browsing Bluesky or Twitter.

I'm reminded of the 1997 general election and the only time I have been canvassed by Labour here in Market Harborough. I said I didn't like the sound of their policies on workfare, at which I was told by the canvasser that she had a friend who was doing a PhD in the area and I was wrong.

My conclusion is that when a Conservative politician suggests it's OK for working-class children to swim in sewage, it may be out of a peculiar sense of nostalgia. When a Labour politician makes that suggestion, it's likely to be out of contempt.

Private Eye is still raising young men to run the British Empire

I'm fast coming to the conclusion that Private Eye's Literary Review is written by the idiot grandson of someone Ian Hislop was at prep school with.

Take his review, in the Eye last, of a biography of the man of letters Richard Blythe, who enjoyed a period of fame in the 1970s as the author of Akenfield:

Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward flew into London with hopes of making Akenfield the movie. But Blythe preferred theatre director Peter Hall, who resisted suggestions to cast Jon Voight and shift the action to the US Midwest. 

In the end, his TV version featured an amateur local cast including Blythe himself playing a vicar and got 15m viewers in 1975. Private Eye paid tribute with Akenballs column and Princess Margaret declared herself a fan, one of the few who could understand the local dialect.

Behind the jocular claim that a regional accent is impossible to understand lies the ingrained belief that a Southern public school accent is normal and anything else is to be laughed at. 

As I said in an earlier post on this Eye column, if the author was aiming to hit the tone of a 17-year-old writing in his public school's magazine 50 years ago, then he scored a bull's eye. 

And behind the idea that Blythe's enthusiasms - liturgy, poetry, history, landscape - are something to be mocked, lies the fear that if a boy grows up with different views from his classmates, he will not be the right sort to take his place as a district commissioner in British West Africa.

Private Eye's investigations are a public service, but its humour and many of its columnists have been of a far lower standard for years.

The Making of Gone to Earth 2

A second behind-the-scenes video from the film shot by Powell and Pressburger in the Shropshire hills and released in 1950.

Local extras are paid in cash. David Farrar rides his horse. Jennifer Jones relaxes. Esmond Knight, playing her father, ropes her in to carry a coffin. Michael Powell helps manhandle a wind machine up a hill.

At the end, Cyril Cusack prepares to baptise Jones at Lords Hill Chapel above Snailbeach on the Stiperstones.

The music's nice, but they really should have used this.

Voters think Ed Davey would make a better prime minister than Farage or Badenoch

Who do Britons think would make the best prime minister?

Keir Starmer vs Kemi Badenoch
Starmer: 31%
Badenoch: 20%

Keir Starmer vs Nigel Farage
Starmer: 36%
Farage: 26%

Keir Starmer vs Ed Davey
Starmer: 24%
Davey: 16%

Kemi Badenoch vs Nigel Farage
Badenoch: 22%
Farage: 22%… pic.twitter.com/EchPOpSMIb

— YouGov (@YouGov) February 10, 2025

There's good news for the Liberal Democrats and their leader in a new opinion poll from YouGov: voters think Ed Davey would make a better prime minister than Nigel Farage or Kemi Badenoch. You can see the details above.

But as London Economic explains, the poll is bad news for the Conservative leader:

The findings were part of larger research carried out by YouGov looking at Badenoch’s favourability after 100 days as leader of the Conservatives.

Safe to say, the findings don’t make great reading for the leader of the opposition, Just under half of Tory voters (48 per cent) say she doesn’t look like a prime minister in waiting, and only a quarter think she has done a good job as leader of the party.

Meanwhile, twice as many people think she is untrustworthy than do trustworthy (39 per cent vs 19 per cent), and she tied with Farage when people were asked who would make the best prime minister (22 per cent for each).

Robert Jenrick has given few reasons for Tories to conclude that he would be any better at the job than Badenoch. So look out for calls for a pact with Reform - or even for Farage to become their new leader.

The surprisingly complicated history of Highbury and Islington

Jago Hazzard gives a thorough and entertaining history of this long-neglected, but now thriving, London station. I too have stood beside the Famous Cock and found that fragment of the original grand Victorian building.

The North London Railway's City terminus at Broad Street has disappeared into history, but in the early Eighties I was a regular user. 

The London Chess League matches, in which I played for the Richmond and Twickenham club, all took place at the nearby Bishopsgate Institute. When my game was over, I would catch a late train from Broad Street all the way home to Kew Gardens.

In case you don't believe me, here's the indicator board at Richmond in those days.

Anyway, you can support Jago Hazzard's videos via his Patreon page.

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Hannah Forsyth surveys the history of the commercialisation of higher education and concludes: "Universities need to be democratic in both structure and purpose."

John Cromby complains that left-wing political commentators treat psychiatric diagnoses as uncontroversial: "This has the effect of reifying psychiatric diagnoses – of making them appear more real, more concrete, more legitimate. It also works to undermine critiques: of diagnosis, and of psychiatry more generally."

"G.K. Chesterton once wrote that journalism was, 'saying "Lord Jones Dead" to people who never knew that Lord Jones was alive'." A hundred-and-some years later that sounds rather quaint. Today, it’s asking three different sources with a vested interest in the matter whether Lord Jones is in fact dead, and posting their contradictory answers in real-time as you receive them." Martin Robbins argues that Donald Trump - and Robert Peston - have broken the news, and that it's probably time to rethink your information diet.

Many of the oligarchs who supported Hitler ended up in concentration camps, reports Timothy W. Ryback.

David Trotter reviews the new British Film Institute book on Ken Loach's Kes (1969): "Kes marked a conscious departure from the 'go-in-and-grab-it' style of Up the Junction. The aim now was to observe, sympathetically, at a distance, but still with a view to avoiding as far as possible any suspicion of extensive rehearsal."

"In the popular imagination, Birmingham isn’t thought of as an artistic bohemia. The city’s historic stereotype, judging by the backdrop to the likes of Peaky Blinders or the risible Tolkien biopic from 2019, is summed up by no-nonsense men bashing iron in huge factories, often to a heavy metal soundtrack." But there's more to the city than that, says Jon Neale as he looks at the role of the Arts and Crafts movement in its history.

Generate your own Penguin Classics cover

 

It's easy to do and it's here.

Was Lucy Letby let down? What happens next?

In another of his informative videos, Alan Robertshaw looks at how Lucy Letby's case now stands and at the role of the expert witness more generally.

Endangered frog dads travel 7,000 miles to 'give birth'

 BBC News hops away with out Headline of the Day Award.

Jethro Tull: Pibroch (Cap in Hand)

It's the summer of 1977. England are regaining the Ashes under Mike Brearley, and Songs from the Wood by Jethro Tull is the best album I know or can imagine.

When I play it loudly at night with my bedroom windows open, I can hear a pair of class 20s  on the Market Harborough to Northampton line. They're slogging up the bank to Great Oxendon with a coal train bound for London.

Yes, it was all a long time ago. Over the years I must have featured most of the tracks on Songs from the Wood here, but not this one. At eight and a half minutes, it represents Tull's blend of folk rock straining to become something more pretentious.

And 'Pibroch'?

Pibroch, piobaireachd or ceòl mòr is an art music genre associated primarily with the Scottish Highlands that is characterised by extended compositions with a melodic theme and elaborate formal variations. Strictly meaning 'piping' in Scottish Gaelic, piobaireachd has for some four centuries been music of the great Highland bagpipe.

The Joy of Six 1322

"Like in all families, there will be differences and even outright conflicts; still, its members feel the bonds of their family resemblance, orienting their ideas and inclinations, both domestically and on the world stage, to a shared ideological purpose." Victor Shammas on the growing club of far-right, hardline nationalist and fascist political leaders that is working hard to transform the world.

"Any assessment of the Reform-Tory battle leads inexorably to the conclusion that Badenoch has not only failed to alleviate her party’s existential predicament - she has deepened it. The Conservative Party’s polling since the July general election tracks on aggregate graphs as a bell curve. The party gained at Labour’s expense during its protracted leadership contest. It peaked as Badenoch assumed the mantle of leader. It has declined since." Josh Self foresees panic in Conservative ranks.

Ana Isabel Nunes writes in praise of legislative theatre: "A form of community-based theatre that gives participants an opportunity to actively explore, analyse and transform their lives through drama and roleplay."

"English cricket has always been a brutal thing, cruel even to its elite players. Mike Brearley’s remark that the Bazball attitude is a reaction to depression is still the most interesting thing anyone has said about it. ... Bazball seems basically to be about being in a group and feeling good. It’s deeply relatable. Don’t you want some of that too?" Barney Ronay on Bazball as a death cult.

Taylor Parkes enjoys The Professionals: "What The Sweeney is to worn-out mid-1970s Britain (tin ashtrays, floral headscarves, bent-faced men in grey slacks and platform shoes kicking each other in the bollocks), so The Professionals is to the very late 70s and very early 80s: huge microwaves, Harrington jackets, Eddie Kidd in a neon nightclub drinking Harp from a glass with a handle."

A London Inheritance visits North Woolwich: "A station, pier, pleasure gardens and causeway."