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Sir Douglas Haig by J P Harris (2008)
Created in SimpleMinds. get in touch if you’d like a copy. Download the SimpleMinds App for free. Douglas Haig and the First World War (2008) J P Harriss Nearly 600 pages that follow a chronology that...
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Haig was no hero
Fig.1. In Flanders Fields It was fashionable to demonise the British leaders of the First World War in the 1960s and it was Alan Clarke who coined the sentence, ‘Lions lead by Donkeys. The media...
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Further reading
Courtesy of Christopher Clark’s ‘The Sleepwalkers: how europe went to war in 1914′ I have been prompted to seek out further books – this reading stack thus far amount to six books and half a dozen...
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Who caused the First World War? Which men, not nations, are to blame?
The Sleepwalkers: How Europe went to war in 1914 by the Australian historian Christopher Clark is the most thorough, balanced and I therefore believe accurate assessment of what took Europe and the...
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Slipping over the edge …
In my youth, like an idiot, I would sometimes ski off trail heading towards a seemingly tame gully. There was this time as I descended with too much confidence into a steep funnel that I realised...
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1908 Olympics
My late grandfather, Jack Wilson MM, clearly remembered Key events that impinged on his life from the Relief of Mafeking in 1902, celebrated in the fringes of the British Empire on the Spa Fields,...
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Canon Ross Lewin looked after the Church
Canon Ross Lewin 1902 There was Tatty Walton’s the Grocer’s and Addison’s the Newsagents. These supermarkets have killed all of that. The pubs were the ‘Kings Head’ and ‘The Commercial’. Canon Lewin...
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The Spa Fields Fair, Shotley Bridge and the fatal accident involving a...
Spa Fields Fair and the Char-a-banc 1902 Every year there was a fair down at the Spa Fields by the river The Spa was noted for its waters which came out of the rocks by the swings; it was icy cold. The...
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William Lubbock – Photographer – Shotley Bridge 1902-1910
Fig. 1. Shotley Bridge, above the Flour Mill. The boys on the road John Arthur Wilson (Jack) and William Nixon Wilson (Billy) William Lubbock – Photographer 1902 There was a teacher called Lubbock;...
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When Shotley Bridge was a thriving town – c 1905
Shotley Bridge and Benfieldside School 1900 Shotley Bridge was a metropolitan, a proper town, a thriving place. The War and the recession and the rest put paid to that; it’s never been the same. Never...
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There were no swimming pools in Shotley Bridge – you had the river
Swimming by the Papermill Sluice 1900 There were no swimming pools We went down to the Papermill dam and used to swim under the sluice. The sluice runs for 600 yards alongside a gently running race....
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Memories of the first cars in County Durham c.1905
The First Cars in County Durham 1900 The first person to have a car in the area was Dr Ralph Renton. Everyone knew when he was coming because you could hear the engine. “Chug, chug chug, chug.” You’d...
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Richard Murray’s Legacy to Benfieldside
Richard Murray’s Legacy 1896 When Richard Murray died in 1912 he left £60,000 to build the hospital behind the house. My father told me he gave each of his sons £30,000. Dick was born in 1839 and died...
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The Wilson Boys – Jack’s Brothers
The Five Wilson Boys 1896 I had five brothers. Percy, who was born in 1893. He was born over in Dalston, and christened over there. His name was Twentyman, but we called him Percy; he died of TB in his...
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Working in the ‘Big House’– life for the Wilsons working for the Murrays
The Big House, the Murrays and Domestic Servants 1896 My father called ‘J.G.’ the ‘Governor.’ He’d been a solicitor practising in Newcastle when his father died and left him the business. There was his...
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