Conferences and talks

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As I mentioned in the previous post I plan to attend some conferences while I'm overseas. The first is Air Power, Insurgency and the 'War on Terror' which is being held at Cranwell, the Royal Air Force College, on 22 and 23 August 2007. I submitted an abstract for this, which wasn't accepted -- which I don't actually mind as it would have required a fair bit of research on topics I wouldn't otherwise have done, no bad thing in itself but I don't have the time at the moment! And it's a very good programme anyway, with some top-notch names and several papers at least touching on British air control policies in the interwar period.

The second is Politics of Fear in the Cold War, to be held at the Hamburg Institute for Social Research (Hamburger Institut für Sozialforschung), 5-7 September. In many ways the era of the knock-out blow was just a foretaste of the atomic age, and the parallels between the two is a subject that fascinates me. No programme is available yet, in fact no information beyond the call for papers, but just from that alone it looks like a lot of fun.

So that's the listening part ... what about the talking? Well, I'm scheduled to give a talk at a summer school on war and society which is being held at Queen Mary, University of London from 30 July to 2 August. I can't tell you the title of the summer school because I don't know myself :) But I'll be talking about my thesis as a whole. As part of my preparation for this, I'm giving a couple of presentations in my department -- a Monday night postgraduate seminar on 21 May, which will also be a general overview, and a Work In Progress Day talk on 31 May, probably on defence panics. (That's assuming I get around to letting the WIPD organisers know about this ...)

Finally, an event which I sadly won't be able to attend: Graffiti Day at Birkbeck College on 4 May (yes, this Friday). Paul Hodges, who kindly dropped me a line with some accommodation advice, will be giving a talk entitled "Written on the bomb: munitions graffiti of modern warfare" -- things like this, I imagine. That's the only item on the programme to do with military history, but the rest look interesting too, so if you're in London this Friday and have the time, it might be worth turning up.

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Peri Magurum -- 9,700 ft High
30 Sqn D.H.9A at 9700 ft over Peri Magurum.

A friend has alerted me to a thread on the Something Awful forums (thanks, Mike!) One of the users has access to a collection of photos taken by an RAF sergeant who served with 30 Squadron in the early 1920s, which unfortunately looks like it is going to be sold and broken up. But luckily scans of them of them are being posted first, and there are some fantastic pictures of Iraq, Palestine and Egypt, many taken from the air, including several of an air raid carried out against a Kurdish town -- air control in action! Naturally, I can't resist posting some of the best ones here, but there are plenty more on the original thread, including the Holy Land, the Suez Canal, dusky maidens, scorpions, a cross-Africa flight from Cairo to Nigeria, and the promise of more to come. I've had to shrink these to fit them onto the page, so click on them to see the full-size version.
...continue reading →

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[I posted this last Wednesday, but somehow, it was marked as "private" rather than "published", so nobody saw it but me! So I'm fixing that and bumping it to the top.]

The talk went off pretty well, I think -- at least I didn't hear any snoring and got some good questions at the end. The best part, though, was that "Four" Meaher (whose own paper on the political uses of the myth of the "great betrayal" -- ie of Australia, by Britain, in 1941-2 -- was one of the highlights of the day for me) put me on to this most amusing song called "The Deepest Shelter in Town", the lyrics of which are below. Googling, it turns out that it was sung by an English comedienne, Florence Desmond (whose first husband, incidentally, was one of the winners of the 1934 London to Melbourne Centenary Air Race, Tom Campbell Black). The reference to Herbert Morrison dates it to his early days at the Home Office (where he was responsible for air raid precautions), ie from October 1940, when he took over from John Anderson -- the height of the Blitz, which fits (though otherwise, the late 1930s might be an even better fit, when the left were attacking the government over the lack of deep air raid shelters).

Don't run away, mister,
Oh stay and play, mister.
Don't worry if you hear the siren go.
Though I'm not a lady of the highest virtue,
I wouldn't dream of letting anything hurt you.
And so before you go,
I think you ought to know

I got a cozy flat,
There's a place for your hat.
I'll wear a pink chiffon negligee gown.
And do I know my stuff?
But if that's not enough,
I've got the deepest shelter in town.

I've got a room for two,
A radio that's new,
An alarm clock that won't let you down.
And I've got central heat,
But to make it complete,
I've got the deepest shelter in town.

Ev'ry modern comfort
I can just guarantee.
If you hear the siren call,
Then it's probably me.

And sweetie, to revert,
I'll keep you on the alert.
I won't even be wearing a frown.
So you can hang around here
Until the "all clear,"
In the deepest shelter in town.

Now, honey, I don't sing
Of an Anderson thing,
Climbing in one, you look like a clown.
But if you came here to see
Why Sir John would agree
I've got the deepest shelter in town.

Now Mr. Morrison
Says he's getting things done,
And he's a man of the greatest renown.
But before it gets wrecked,
I hope he'll come and inspect
The deepest shelter in town.

Now, I was one of the first
To clear my attic of junk.
But when it comes to shelters,
Now-a-days, it's all bunk.

So, honey, don't get scared,
It's there to be shared!
And you'll feel like a king with a crown.
So please don't be mean,
Better men than you have been
In the deepest shelter in town.

Now, what she meant by 'I've got the deepest shelter in town' I'm sure I don't know, but I imagine she looked something like this when she was singing it!

Florence Desmond

Image source: Virtual History Film.

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I'm giving a talk next Wednesday as part of the History Department's Work In Progress Day, and that's the title I would have given it, had I been the least bit imaginative the day I wrote the abstract. Instead I have a nothing title ("Airpower and British society: plans and progress"), and to go along with it, a nothing abstract:

My thesis is on the impact of airpower propaganda on the British people between 1908 and 1941. During this period, air panics -- most importantly the fear of the 'knock-out blow' of civilisation by bombing and gas attacks -- replaced naval and invasion panics as the most characteristic and significant expression of public concern about the defence of Britain. More positively, some looked to aviation to promote peace through deterrence or collective security. The ways in which these hopes and fears were articulated and manipulated have been little studied and provide insights into some perhaps surprising aspects of British society.

Of course, I am merely following the time-honoured academic tradition of writing the abstract long before the paper is written, or even thought about, which explains the nothingness! I will actually just be giving a general overview of what my PhD is about, what themes I hope to explore, what the sources are, and so on. I'm in the second-last slot of the day, so most people will probably be dozing off by then and I can slip my talk in without getting noticed :D 20 minutes plus 10 for discussion, a little razzle, a little dazzle, some laughs, some tears, and that's all there is to it.

Actually, it will be good to get it out of the way, because it will satisfy one of the conditions for the confirmation of my PhD candidature, which means I can get funding for overseas travel. It's the first talk I'll have given for my PhD, which probably should be confronting, but WIPD is apparently a very relaxed environment (59 other students from the department will be giving papers -- cleverly, they all chose interesting titles like "Sexing the belly: the cultural politics of Britney Spears' pregnant body"), and anyway I have given a couple of papers at big international conferences before, so I am not without experience. Mind you, I gave them very badly, but perhaps I have matured with age ...

The department is also revamping its website, and now has a list of its postgraduate students, including yours truly. This proves what I have suspected for a while, namely that as a British historian (historian of Britain, whatever) I am in a distinct minority in my department! What's with all this Australian history, sheesh.