In this special episode with Professor Mark Connelly we explore the profound connection between landscape, memory, and national identity during the Great War, focusing on the significance of chalk landscapes in Britain and their influence on cultural memory and battlefield symbolism.
If you haven’t read it, go get it! Help me break the 3000 barrier ( just for fun, there’s no money in it!😁)
RAF MUSEUM NATIONAL COLLECTION Object Conditioning day:
We have an extensive collection of WW1-era twin-blade and four-blade wooden propellers, and there is just something about them that I love. The craftsmanship is second to none, and they are surprisingly light as well. Check out the decals too.
Stoked to learn the first of the latest Llyn Cerrig Bach assemblage recovered a few years ago is now on exhibition at Oriel Môn in Anglesey. The Terret ring I recovered now showing the remains of the red glass inlay in all its glory. ( Still hate that bloody photo of me, though😆). 📸 Paul Shanks
If only!😆
👇
The band on stage at KoKo’s in London.
An evening with Squeeze in London. The new album in full followed by a one hour set of greatest hits!
My cousin Charlotte and her friends are cycling hundreds of miles across Scotland, for the Doddie Triple Crown, raising money for research and support for MND patients.
If you could help at all, donating or sharing this link, they - and I - would be so grateful.
www.justgiving.com/team/grittyg...
Done. My brother died from MND so happy to chip in x
RAF MUSEUM NATIONAL COLLECTION conditioning day.
Two rather special First Pattern items:
The approved pattern for the RFC brass shoulder title, and the sample that was approved for the RAF Pilot brevet, signed off on 8th August 1918.
A great privilege once again to handle such important artefacts
Isabel Oakeshott: anti-migration commentator, economic migrant to Dubai, possible future evacuee of the very British state she insists is broken.
Isn’t it funny how mobility becomes acceptable when it’s your own?
Surprised? No...not really...
Now don’t let accuracy get in the way of a 5-second compilation!😂
😂
Bloody Normans, coming over here WAY before their time, generating a butterfly event…
Sorry! Couldn’t resist. I’ll get my coat…
All completely made up, but I couldn’t leave you high and dry!😁
Having worked on various Op Nightingale and TT projects I always missed the chance to meet you (or visit ‘the tent’ re the Llyn Cerrig Bach recoveries), so here’s to your future adventures and a hope that tide will turn.
All done. Display options to consider next.
RAF MUSEUM NATIONAL COLLECTION conditioning day.
Take a look at this Harvard & Boston Aero Meet competitor's medal and note the date...
1910
Just seven years after the Wright brother's historic first flight.
Seven years...
Excellent gig tonight at KK’s Steel Mill. Smith/Kotzen Band.
Poorly. Watching it tomorrow. Promise.
What interested me most is how objects like this act as unofficial archives. Not heroic relics or medals, just things that travelled home with their owners, carrying stories that formal records often miss. Material culture can really earn its keep.
#HiddenHistories #HistoryThroughObjects #POWs
The suitcase lid is covered in names: officers who shared captivity in German POW camps during the First World War.
Each inscription is a trace of a relationship: comradeship, survival, boredom, solidarity. Together they form a quiet social network, scratched into an everyday object.
#RAF
My latest research paper traces the lives of First World War RAF prisoners of war through something very ordinary, a suitcase, and what it reveals about captivity, friendship, and memory www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
#ConflictArchaeology #MaterialCulture #PublicHistory #WW1History #RAFHistory
My latest 1/35 scale project honouring the three paratroopers whose dog tags we have archaeologically recovered over the years.
First day out with the new detector today. I’ve re secured my local permissions, so as the weather and daylight improve you may see me out and about. Hopefully I will also have something interesting to show you from our local social history if anything interesting comes up and the land owner agrees