…n March 1931. The transcript and Price’s account of the séance can be read online, along with a commentary by ‘Mr. X’, apparently Will Charlton, supply officer at R101’s Cardington base. Mr. X found that many of the statements made by ‘Irwin’ were correct, some of which were unknown at the time of the séance, and most of which were made in plausible technical language, unlikely to have been known by non-experts. For example, ‘Irwin’ said that ther…
…self gave a wonderful account of her flight to the BBC, which can be heard online here. (Ignore the photo there, which is of the Army airship Baby.) The photograph above is from a scrapbook belonging to an American women’s suffrage organisation, so the message did travel quite some distance, albeit to a receptive audience; I couldn’t find any mention of Matters’ flight in a quick search of the British press. It took nearly a decade for the WFL’s d…
England and the Aeroplane online! | Airminded […] This is good to see; it’s an important book for my area of study (though I already have a copy of my own, natch!) and one of the few to try to step back and see the bigger picture of how the aeroplane fits into English society, culture, politics, industry and, of course, the warfare state. […] Acquisitions […] relationship with technology in general and aviation in particular (I see it was o…
Chris Williams Run, don’t walk, to your nearest online bookshop and buy James’ _The Paladins_. Bookfinder has it in Oz for 18 dollars, though I suspect that they might be US ones. Brett Holman Oh, thanks, I have it, but didn’t think to look at it! It does add a bit of weight to the “adventurer” angle: eg Sykes turned up hoping to fight in a small war that was brewing in Nigeria (Calabar). Might be that timing was a factor too – officers who had d…
…b intensively; to devastate […] Don Hmmm A couple of years ago now I met online a woman who, as a girl, had known my Uncle during his Bomber Command training days at Bruntingthorpe. This was late ’42 to early ’43. She was 10 then, daughter in a family that befriended a group (3) of trainee airmen who had become close mates. They all went operational in May ’43, two lost their lives almost immediatley and my Uncle completed 12 ops before his demi…
…the 60th anniversary?) which you might want to look for in the Guardian’s online archive. Brett Holman You’re exactly right about the shame/guilt, Jack! In fact I think there is a lot of that sort of thinking going on in predictions of the knock-out blow, particularly where the working classes were involved (not sure what Bethnal Green is like now, but back then it was definitely working class). It was assumed they would behave irrationally in ai…
…couple of posts in mind – one about war technology and Britain in the 1920s/30s, and one about using sports psychology with students. Got to put up something to make sure I make it into Brett’s History Carnival. Following a conversation about copyright and archiving online last week, I was also interested to read Sharon Howard’s post on this topic. Showing off your body on your blog might or might not get you that academic job, but making your pap…
…review which didn’t bother to check that you could actually get the notes online. Brett Holman He can add another complaint from a grad student :P Seriously, on those terms it was absolutely the right decision — I’d rather have the extra chapter. But it’s easy to imagine situations where this is going to diminish the usefulness of the book. For example, what about a copy sitting in a university library somewhere, 3 or 5 years from now when the p…
…Veteran history blogger Alan Allport (Horizon and Cliopatria) has an interesting new blog: War Starts at Midnight! I can’t find anything defining the blog’s scope, but so far the posts are a mixture of links to images, reviews and news relating to the World Wars, centering on the Second World War and Britain. Which is not surprising given Alan’s PhD is on British demobilisation after the Second World War. Good stuff — added to the sidebar….
…ch films or on the same program with a lecture etc. From what is available online it seems to be a fairly credible piece of amateur filmmaking, heavily propagandistic in tone. Brett Holman Thanks for the fast responses — maybe I should outsource more of my idle questions to my readers! Alan: I did think it might have something to do with some sort of peace group — I hadn’t heard of the Anti-Poison Gas Association, though, thanks for that. It see…
