I was delighted when I was asked to write a book about Stockport. Although I am not a ‘born and bred Stopfordian’, I have spent several decades of my life living there, and my children were brought up there. Writing...

I’ve written nearly a dozen books now on Sussex but as a Brightonian it is always the greatest honour to be asked to write about my hometown, so I was delighted to be asked by Amberley to write the latest...

The heritage of Roman Verulamium and the medieval monastery of St Albans are no secret. But the town’s later history is less well known. The Charter Borough, created following the dissolution of the monastery, is not untypical of other English...

In the years prior to my time in the railway-tourism industry and before I had learned to drive, my spare time was often filled through extensive use of regional Westcountry bus services, trains from Taunton Station and, somewhat extensively, my...

In my new book 'The Dignity of Labour. Image, Work and Identity in the Roman World' (published by Amberley on January 2021) I examine how images were used by some workers and professionals in the Roman world to publicly express...

The great wooden doors of the cathedral swung open on their iron hinges. Sunlight flooded in, casting long shadows across the stone floor. A gust of wind blasted in, chilling the necks of those seated nearby. Inside, the worshipers –...

Was butter the real reason Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa to conquer the Soviet Union? Napoleon Bonaparte allegedly once said “An army marches on its’ stomach”, but to paraphrase him there is a strong case to say that the Germans who...

The role of technical experts such as engineers, scientists, and mathematicians in modern warfare, is often indispensable. John Robert Vernon Dolphin, born in 1905 in the small village of Christleton, just outside Chester, was just such a technical expert. He...

Family at Work in Greenwich When I journey back to my hometown of Greenwich today, I look upon the familiar scenes I knew well as a child that have changed little over the years, the Old Royal Naval College, the...

The year 1829 saw a quiet revolution take place on the new railway between Liverpool and Manchester. A bright yellow machine named ROCKET, built in Newcastle by the father and son team of George and Robert Stephenson, swept aside her...