Author: Boadicea

On This Day – 14th October 1940

On the 14th of October 1940 in Lucknow India Rodger Oscar Webb  and his his wife, Dorothy Marie, had a son, Harry Rodger Webb.  Following India’s Independence in 1948, the family returned to England and settled in Carshalton, an area I know well.

Many years ago a friend of mine was playing in a skiffle band, which young Harry joined. He was a darn nuisance, my friend told me. “He wanted to play rock ‘n’ roll and we were definitely not interested in that, so we asked him to leave”. My friend’s skiffle band went where most such bands went – nowhere.  Harry changed his name to Cliff Richards – and the rest, as they say, is history. Continue reading “On This Day – 14th October 1940”

On This Day – 11th October 1982


On the 11th of October 1982 the Mary Rose, flagship of King Henry VIII, was raised to the surface after 437 years at the bottom of the Solent. The operation cost £4,000,000.

Launched in 1510, the Mary Rose sank on her way to engage the French enemy fleet off Portsmouth Sound on the 19th of July 1545. Between four and five hundred men perished.

In July 1545 the French fleet entered the Solent with the intention of invading the Isle of Wight and destroying the English fleet. The French fleet was huge, with around 200 ships.  The English fleet consisted of around 80 ships, in Portsmouth, with more expected from the west Country. The English aimed to fight a defensive battle, they were outnumbered, but had a positional advantage. The first day of the battle consisted of a long range cannonade between the French galleys and the English fleet in which neither side suffered any real loss. The French had managed to invade the Isle of Wight, tangling with the local militia. Continue reading “On This Day – 11th October 1982”

Role Reversal

When my daughter moved away from Canberra some years ago she made sure that her son spent some part of his holidays with us, wherever we happened to be. First port of call after picking him up at the airport  was the supermarket – so that he could choose what he wanted to eat while he was with us. The rest of the holiday was spent showing him around whatever city we happened to be living in.

Yesterday I flew to Perth to spend a few days as my grandson’s guest. I was met at the airport and whisked off to the supermarket… For the next five days I shall be taken around Perth.

I’ll be looking in, but the time difference will make it virtually impossible for me to do much more than comment very late at UK night…

Catch you all later… 🙂

On This Day – 31st August 1997

On the 31st of August 1997, Diana, titled Princess of Wales, died after a car crash in Paris. The accident occurred after Diana left the Ritz Hotel in the French capital with her companion, Dodi Al Fayed, the son of the owner of Harrods, Mohammed Al Fayed. Dodi Al Fayed and the vehicle’s driver, Henri Paul, were also killed in the collision: the only survivor was Diana’s bodyguard, Trevor Rees-Jones.

Continue reading “On This Day – 31st August 1997”

Home Again!

Yesterday we left the UK after a three month visit. We’d had our last decent Indian meal and proper fish ‘n’ chips… and on Monday I bought (yet another) new suitcase to accommodate  our contributions to the British economy.

At  7.30 am we got the taxi to Heathrow. I was dreading the check-in. Normally there are long queues which I’ve managed to avoid in the last few years by booking-in on line – this time I had no access to a printer. Regs state clearly: two suitcases, 20 kg per person and 7kg hand luggage. We had three suitcases of unknown weight, and four computers and a pile of books in our hand luggage … Continue reading “Home Again!”