Shows / History | Going Postal
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- History | Going Postal
Harry Hotspur: The Reckless Alnwick Knight Who Outlived His Own Death
Shakespeare made him famous. The Scots gave him his nickname, which a well-known football club adopted 500 years later. This is the story of a man who lived…
- History | Going Postal
From Then To Now
Late autumn 1962 was good to culture. The first James Bond film opened in London on 5 October. The French New Wave was at its height with the release of Cléo…
- History | Going Postal
A History of Pop Music – Albums 1973
Featured Album: Pink Floyd – Dark Side of the Moon This is a series of articles looking at albums from 1960 to whatever year we end up in. I will select a…
- History | Going Postal
The Fed’s “Dual Mandate” Is One Too Many
Two mistaken lessons from the ‘20s and ‘30s haunt us today Prior to 1913 there was no central bank in the US, and yet the US enjoyed tremendous economic…
- History | Going Postal
Frederick Pybus: the surgeon behind Lucozade
If you were ever handed a bottle of Lucozade when ill as a child, you can trace the origins of this back to a Stockton-born surgeon, a baby who died on his…
- History | Going Postal
Swan Song
I’m plodding through Earl Spencer’s Swan Song so that you don’t have to. Likewise, almost a century ago, my infant father and his parents visited the Earls’…
- History | Going Postal
John Martin: The Geordie Who Invented the Blockbuster
John Martin from Haydon Bridge made his name painting the end of the world, so convincingly that one London gallery had to put a railing round his picture to…
- History | Going Postal
A History of Pop Music – Albums 1972
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfrOlB6pXNI Featured Album: David Bowie – The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars This is a series…
- History | Going Postal
Hari Seldon’s Maths Machine in Northamptonshire: A 100-Variable Model for Predicting the future…
A bit about me… Hi… i’m Phil.. I live in Northamptonshire, married with two kids, I work in the construction industry, or at least adjacent…
- History | Going Postal
History don’t repeat, but it sure do rhyme……..
There is a particular species of man that history keeps breeding, the way a swamp keeps breeding mosquitoes — simply because the conditions are irresistible…
- History | Going Postal
Childhood Memories
At the end of August 1939 my maternal grandmother took the decision that her children would not be evacuated because of the war. My grandfather had little say…
- History | Going Postal
George Airy: The Man Who Filed the Universe
George Biddell Airy was Astronomer Royal for 46 years. He drew the line the whole world sets its clocks by, weighed the Earth from the bottom of a coal pit in…
- History | Going Postal
Questionable Ethics, Philosophical Guidelines, and the Art of Profiting from Instability (Part 5)
How did George Soros’s saga of triumph unfold from those nascent days in America? As a young émigré, he had charted a modest course: amass $500,000 in five…
- History | Going Postal
Cuthbert Collingwood: The forgotten hero of Trafalgar
Collingwood was the other admiral at Trafalgar. He was the first into the fight, took charge of the whole fleet after Nelson’s death and brought every…
- History | Going Postal
What does our nuclear deterrent actually deter
We have had a nuclear deterrent for 72 years or so. It may have deterred someone from dropping a nuclear bomb on us at some point but does it still deter…
- History | Going Postal
A History of Pop Music – Albums 1971
Featured Album: T-Rex – Electric Warrior This is a series of articles looking at albums from 1960 to whatever year we end up in. I will select a featured album…
- History | Going Postal
The Neutrality Referendum
Why Switzerland must tie its politicians’ hands On the 27th of September, Swiss voters will decide on the popular initiative “Safeguarding Swiss Neutrality.”…
- History | Going Postal
Questionable Ethics, Philosophical Guidelines, and the Art of Profiting from Instability (Part 4)
According to F. William Engdahl, a German-American political scientist and incisive commentator, George Soros secured the allegiance of 99 “sophisticated…
- History | Going Postal
Mary Ann Cotton: Four Weddings and a Lot of Funerals
The series takes its first (but not final) turn to the darker side of the North East’s historical figures. Mary Ann Cotton of Low Moorsley was the first female…
- History | Going Postal
What It Means to Be an American
There is a very big difference between being an American and a citizen of any other nation We often hear that Americans are special. We may even say that…
- History | Going Postal
A View From (The Plot By) The Greenhouse; Unintended Consequence?
It’s getting near the end of the original planting of potatoes. The original idea was to do a second planting, in between the rows that had already been…
- History | Going Postal
Questionable Ethics, Philosophical Guidelines, and the Art of Profiting from Instability (Part 3)
Arnhold and S. Bleichroeder, the firm where George Soros honed his craft from 1963 to 1973, was a fusion of two venerable German institutions. The first…
- History | Going Postal
Thomas Bewick: the Northumbrian who made his mark
Thomas Bewick redrew every bird in Britain on blocks of boxwood the size of a beer mat, hid some very rude jokes in the margins of a natural history book, and…
- History | Going Postal
A History of Pop Music – Albums 1970
Featured Album: Simon & Garfunkel – Bridge Over Troubled Water This is a series of articles looking at albums from 1960 to whatever year we end up…
- History | Going Postal
John Walker: The Man Who Gave the World a Light
In 1826 a Stockton chemist scraped a dirty stirring stick across a rough hearth and invented the friction match. He sold fire by the tin for a shilling…
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Britain 1940 and Iran 2026
The Unsavory Similarity Revealed It struck me that there are several similarities between Britain’s noble stand against Nazi Germany in 1940 and Iran’s stand…
- History | Going Postal
Gertrude Bell: the uncrowned Queen of Iraq
This is the first article since the railway series went into the sidings, and we are now well overdue an article on the fairer sex. So, this week we bring to…
- History | Going Postal
TANKFEST 2026 & The Tank Museum, Pt 2
The Tank Museum itself is worth a visit, regardless of whether there’s an event taking place or not. It’s a very large museum and could easily take a full day…
- History | Going Postal
A History of Pop Music – Albums 1969
Featured Album: Johnny Cash – At San Quentin This is a series of articles looking at albums from 1960 to whatever year we end up in. I will select a…
- History | Going Postal
TANKFEST 2026 & The Tank Museum, Pt 1
For Father’s Day this year, my brother suggested taking Dad to TANKFEST, the annual event held at The Tank Museum in Bovington, Dorset. Yes… yes, let’s do…
- History | Going Postal
A View From (A Harbour Some Miles Away From) The Greenhouse; On “Northerner-Ness”
When I was at school, many moons ago now, history was something that was taught to us without the strictures surrounding Colonialism, White Supremacy, Racism…
- History | Going Postal
The Railway’s sleepers: the Patron, the builder and the Polymath
A final journey into history to meet three men whose names never sadly made it into popular memory but who, like all the others, laid the foundations still…
- History | Going Postal
A History of Pop Music – Albums 1968
Featured Album: Dianna Ross & The Supremes – Greatest Hits This is a series of articles looking at albums from 1960 to whatever year we end up in. I will…
- History | Going Postal
Walking in Memphis
I guess you know this is a song. The Cher version is crap but Marc Cohn’s one in the early 90s was great Anyone who has heard of, let alone been, to Memphis…
- History | Going Postal
Postcard from Mumbai
After a long, hot site visit in Panoli, a small industrial town in Gujarat, the traffic on the main Ahmedabad to Mumbai highway was even more hideous than…
- History | Going Postal
Nicholas Wood: The man who wrote the book on railways
He taught Robert Stephenson his trade, judged the Rainhill Trials, and wrote the first proper book on railways, the one that engineers across the world…
- History | Going Postal
The Westland Whirlwind
The Whirlwind was a twin-engine, heavy fighter developed by Westland Aircraft, not to be confused by the Westland Whirlwind helicopter of many years later. It…
- History | Going Postal
Beamish: the Museum that said yes to everything
You may be surprised to learn that a working time machine has already been invented in County Durham. It exists because one man refused to let the region throw…
- History | Going Postal
Somewhere to Hang Your Towel
The phrase “grim up north” lingers in the national imagination and conjures images of soot-stained skylines, struggling towns, and industries long past their…
- History | Going Postal
A History of Pop Music – Albums 1967
Featured Album: The Monkees This is a series of articles looking at albums from 1960 to whatever year we end up in. I will select a featured album for each…
- History | Going Postal
Edward Pease: the Grandfather of the railways
George Stephenson gets the statues. But a plain-dressing Quaker wool merchant from Darlington put up the money, drove the Act through Parliament, and hired…
- History | Going Postal
A Plutocrats’ Tour of The North, Part Eight
The phrase “grim up north” lingers in the national imagination and conjures images of soot-stained skylines, struggling towns, and industries long past their…
- History | Going Postal
The Sure Way to Destroy a Prosperous Nation
This is not a frivolous claim, but the sure way to destroy a prosperous nation is to debase the currency. History is full of examples, from ancient Rome to the…
- History | Going Postal
John Buddle: the man who subdued the monster
He started working life down a pit age six, ran half the coalfield by his thirties, and built an entire harbour to spite his rivals. They called him the King…
- History | Going Postal
A Plutocrats Tour of The North, Part Seven
For generations, the phrase “grim up north” has lingered in the national imagination — conjuring images of soot-stained skylines, struggling towns, and…
- History | Going Postal
A History of Pop Music – Albums 1966
Featured Album: The Mama’s & The Papa’s If you can believe your eyes and ears This is a series of articles looking at albums from 1960 to whatever…
- History | Going Postal
Wendyball – flair or organisation
Back in the good old days, say the 60s and 70s, the top team in world football was arguably Brasil. You were only allowed to play for the national team if you…
- History | Going Postal
Wealthy Wendyball Wayfaring
As the World Gentleman’s Wendyball Invitation Shield dominates yet another weekend, shall we use our weekly plutocrats’ tour of the North to spy upon the…
- History | Going Postal
Book review: Proto: how one ancient language went global, by Laura Spinney
Who are we, and where did we come from? Might our ancestral languages hold the key? More years ago than I care to remember, as a teenager I came upon an old…
- History | Going Postal
The Realer World of Little Trains
Burnham, Starmer, by-elections, defence reviews, World Cups, wars and the cost of living? Meh. Never mind all of that, what’s happening in the realer world of…
- History | Going Postal
A History of Pop Music – Albums 1965
Featured Album: Righteous Brothers – Just Once in My Life This is a series of articles looking at albums from 1960 to whatever year we end up in. I will…
- History | Going Postal
The Iran War, “Rope-a-Dope”, and the 1415 Battle of Agincourt
The military consequences of the Iran War have precedence in the 1415 Battle of Agincourt, in which an inferior number of English archers defeated a much…
- History | Going Postal
An Easier (Circular) Route to Plutocracy
Known for muck and brass, the grim north of England was formerly a hotbed of the Industrial Revolution, rich in sweat, resources, enterprise and plutocrats…