A LinkedIn advert which promises the ability to add Dr before your name and receive an honorary doctorate in 'your own Passionate Skill'. It is accompanied by an image of an older white man in academic dress holding a scroll.

Made the mistake of opening LinkedIn and it turns out I've been wasting my time on these final thesis edits; will be instead applying for an honorary doctorate in my own Passionate Skill (exact skill tbc: ice cream consumption, perhaps)

Ha! the thought alone gives me the fear 😬

Having run a Beamish and a Durham Microsoft account on the same computer for 3.5 years, I feel this deeply in my soul

this looks like a fab PhD! can personally attest to a CDA with an open air museum being a great way to do PhD research too

big up the Derwent Pencil Museum for real (nice to see open-air museums get some love too!)

(how she has the energy and resilience to run a half marathon with a brain tumour and alongside PhD studies I really do not know, she truly is the best of us)

I can attest to their counselling services, which helped me stay afloat last spring, and Sophie to their Young Adult support group which helped her feel less alone with a very rare diagnosis. Brain tumour research is hugely underfunded, and a cure really can't wait.

Sophie's fundraiser for The Brain Tumour Charity Help Sophie Anson raise money to support The Brain Tumour Charity

Emerging from thesis-writing exile to share my sister's fundraiser for The Brain Tumour Charity, who have helped our family so much over the last five years, but especially after her second craniotomy a year ago. Any amount really does help;

www.justgiving.com/page/sophie-...

Same! I just want the choice to make it go away, but even the Beamish IT guy couldn't make it happen 🥲

Copilot button has appeared in Word and I have no way of disabling it, not even with the admin help of the IT support people, so it's just going to be there, hovering menacingly over my thesis draft like evil version of the paperclip 🥺

Lifebuoy with a label, "am I clean and tidy?" mirror in the centre, with a selfie by a white woman with long brown hair.

Inside of a Victorian classroom, light green walls, panelling. The teacher is at a blackboard in the far left corner, and in front of her is a row of museum delegates. On the wall is a map of Wales

Keeping it Clean and Tidy with a Victorian School Experience at St Fagan's for #Museums2025

All famines are man-made, all famines are political. Historians of empire and humanitarianism have known this forever. Gaza is not starving, Gaza is being starved, by Israel, and this starvation is enabled by our government and by every other government that does not step in to force food and aid.

A poster with a milk and baby reminder so you know how much you need, measured in loaves and pints

A view of a street of brick buildings at the black country living museum, with red white and blue bunting across the street

Mine entrance - a brick building with green double doors which are closed

Sign which reads Happy Mother, Happy Baby, Happy Home, and a bookcase filled with children's toys including dolls, a dolls house and push along dogs

Back from a wonderful few days #SHSconf2025 - maybe the friendliest conference I've been to and a real beacon of light (apart from, of course, underground in the VERY DARK mine) - cheers @socialhistsoc.bsky.social for the opportunity to present, BCLM for being a fab venue, and to new friendships 🎠

honestly it was really great! but very dark (which sounds so obvious but still took me by surprise!)

obviously, we rewarded ourselves for having done our talks by immediately going down the mine, 10/10 #SHSconf2025

White woman with brown hair and navy dress stands at a lectern, gesturing at an image of a man working a machine with the words "men" and "coal"

Lovely to be on such an inspiring panel on open-air museums #SHSconf2025 (thank you to @meg-sch.bsky.social for putting our panel together!!) although I never realised *quite* how much I talked with my hands until I saw it in pictures...

A pint of scrumpy cider held in front of a pub with green and cream tiled frontage

All conferences henceforth will need to have pints and fairground rides as evening activities, I'm afraid - a cracking first day #SHSconf2025 @ BCLM topped off by winning the pub quiz 🍻

ah brilliant - thanks! It was mine too, so it's been quite full circle 😅

Hi Jenny! Not sure if this is what you're looking for as I'm sort of a blend of both and neither - former practitioner, now PhDing on open-air museums and nostalgia!

A white enamel mug with 'the floggings will continue until morale improves' in purple. Label with 'floggings will continue mug, Beamish Living Museum, £12.99'

Art gallery with wooden flooring, small black shelving with objects and a white museum display case with glass top. Sign on left wall says Tat, on right wall Café.

Called into the @cursedobjectsuk.bsky.social exhibition while in Bloomsbury today with my sister and thoroughly enjoyed it - even a Beamish cameo!

Historians for Trans Rights - Open Letter to MPs In light of the recent and incessant attacks on the trans community in the UK by the UK government and legal system, a group of UK-based historians have drafted the letter linked below. Our aim is to ...

OPEN LETTER: HISTORIANS FOR TRANS RIGHTS

Are you a historian in the UK or working on UK history fed up at seeing the history of LGBTQIA+ discrimination repeat itself? Sign this open letter to MPs demanding they stand up for trans rights now!

Letter: tinyurl.com/879vuver
Sign: tinyurl.com/4p7wktrn

Congratulations!!

Pope Francis and Saint Francis YouTube video by Dr Liam Temple

New from me! How did the papacy of #popefrancis reflect Franciscan values? A retrospective on the Jesuit with the heart of a Franciscan: youtu.be/_BEK1VNXNHI #francisofassisi #franciscan #skystorians #papacy #catholicism #catholic

Trans women are women and no court judgement can change that. Without wanting to diminish the negative effect that legal oppression has on trans lives, there is no reason why lawyers and judges are qualified to make this argument over actual experts in the field.

at what point does history comfortably become novelty?

(allowing for the fact that sometimes the answer is never)

v excited to be speaking at SHS this year on regional identity in open-air museums, and to be heading back to BCLM - looking forward to seeing the recent additions!

Image of a book in front of a bookshelf. It is "Geordies" by Robert Colls and Bill Lancaster. The front cover features a drawing of a variety of people, most of whom are pulling a rope.

Picking up some apt reading in the library tonight 🖤🤍🖤🤍 #geordies

Hidden house church. There are pink barriers for the upstairs seats, with replica candles, and a row of individual seats in front of a small altar.

Interior of the Basilica. Three stained glass windows and two plain windows, black and gold walls, and altar.

Interior of the Oude Kirk. Plain walls, with a painting just visible on the wooden roof, and tombstone flooring.

Squeezing as much as possible into the DFDS mini-cruise to Amsterdam with the Oude Kirk, Basilica and the amazing Our Lord in the Attic hidden Catholic Church today!

Mega congrats Grant!! 🥳

View from Seaham beach of the pebbled beach, receding tide and horizon and grey sky.

A hot chocolate mug on a grey table. The saucer is drizzled with chocolate sauce, the mug has cream, chocolate sauce, chocolate pieces and a wafer.

Lovely Sunday afternoon in Seaham searching for sea glass with a very extravagant hot chocolate as a reward - I love how much history is still washing up on the shore every day