The Deep Despair of the Duke & Duchess: The Duke of York, Albert, and his family had been in Scotland during the days preceding the Abdication Crisis. When the British press broke their self-imposed silence about King Edward’s affair with Mrs Simpson on 3rd December 1936, the Yorks were on their way back to LondonContinue reading “Majesty & Grace IV: The Lives & Times of the Windsors – The Reign of ‘Albert the Good’ – George VI, 1936-39.”
Category Archives: tolerance
Majesty & Grace III: The Lives & Times of the Windsors, 1936 – The 327 Days of Edward VIII:
New Year’s Eve, 1935 – From Sandringham to Bryanston Court: As his father lay on his deathbed at Sandringham at Christmas 1935, David (as he was known to the family) was preoccupied with his adoration for Wallis Simpson, a slender, dark-haired 39-year-old American who was married to a London businessman. She had been married before,Continue reading “Majesty & Grace III: The Lives & Times of the Windsors, 1936 – The 327 Days of Edward VIII:”
Majesty & Grace II – The Lives & Times of The Windsors; George V & Family, 1921-1936.
1922-23 – Four Royal Weddings: The betrothal of 24-year-old Princess Mary to Viscount Lascelles, 39-year-old millionaire son of the Earl of Harewood, was officially announced at Buckingham Palace on 22 November 1921: On the last day of February 1922, the marriage was held at Westminster Abbey. The Abbey was thrown open to the public afterContinue reading “Majesty & Grace II – The Lives & Times of The Windsors; George V & Family, 1921-1936.”
Majesty & Grace I – The Lives & Times of the Windsors, 1901-1921: The Reigns of Edward VII & George V.
Picture: The Battle of Jutland in the North Sea in 1916. Neither side won the battle, but the German fleet was forced to shelter in harbour until 1918. George V’s second son, Albert George (Bertie), Duke of York from 1920, future George VI and the father of the late Queen Elizabeth II, was an officer on board HMS Collingwood.
Faith, Fantasy & Fairy Tales – Tolkien, ‘Jack’ Lewis & ‘The Inklings’, 1926-66: Part Two – ‘Shadowy Abstractions’
There was a good stretch of time between Jack Lewis’s conversion on the way to Whipsnade and his writing of the Tales of Narnia. Throughout this time, while Tolkien was writing his Hobbit stories, Lewis was musing on the physical similarities that men and beasts have in common. This is why he felt that Kenneth Grahame, in The Wind in the Willows, made exactly the right choice in giving his principal character the form of a toad
J. R. R. Tolkien & Birmingham, 1896-1916: The Formative Years, Part One (to 1908) – Middle English
The South African Prelude – Beginnings in Bloemfontein: Arthur Reuel Tolkien and Mabel Suffield (pictured above in the family group), both from Birmingham, were married in Cape Town Cathedral on 16th April 1891, after which came an exhausting railway journey of nearly seven hundred miles to the capital of the Orange Free State. Less thanContinue reading “J. R. R. Tolkien & Birmingham, 1896-1916: The Formative Years, Part One (to 1908) – Middle English”
Orbán & Fidesz versus Soros, et. al: Whose Values? -The Continuing Confrontation.
Extract from a Speech by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán at the 31st Bálványos Summer Free University and Student Camp, 23 July 2022, Tusnádfürdő [Băile Tuşnad]: We have managed to separate our big debate on the whole gender issue from the debate on EU money, and the two are now moving forward on separate tracks. HereContinue reading “Orbán & Fidesz versus Soros, et. al: Whose Values? -The Continuing Confrontation.”
A Gentle Gulliver – Warwickshire Adventures & Sojourns
Mooching with Seymour Henry: Forty years ago this summer (2022), my grandfather, Seymour Henry Gulliver, died aged eighty-two. He was born at the beginning of the twentieth century at Ufton-on-the-Hill, Warwickshire, the seventh child and one of the younger sons of a large family of thirteen children, eleven of whom survived into adulthood. Seymour wasContinue reading “A Gentle Gulliver – Warwickshire Adventures & Sojourns”
Who were the Huguenots? Currents of Cultural & Linguistic Change in France & Early Modern Europe.
Pictured above are French Protestants at Lyons Temple service, which was converted from an ordinary house. The hatted preacher is timed by an hourglass, and the two sexes are seated mainly in separate parts of the temple. Introduction – A Retrospective on Genocide & Deculturation: The word ‘genocide’ is essentially a term relating to eventsContinue reading “Who were the Huguenots? Currents of Cultural & Linguistic Change in France & Early Modern Europe.”
The Book of Exodus and Hebrew Law & Wisdom in its Ancient Eastern Context
The Covenant and the Torah: Closely associated with the story of the exodus in the Old Testament is that of how the Israelites journeyed to a mountain where Yahweh ratified a covenant between himself and his people. There is still a great deal of uncertainty about this mountain of Israel’s destiny. Its very name isContinue reading “The Book of Exodus and Hebrew Law & Wisdom in its Ancient Eastern Context”
Andrew James 