Author: Purple Brolly

My aim is to give a flavour of these precious islands we call 'the UK'. All research is based on a minimum of two publicly available sources, usually more.

Entertainment

Dire Straits

To be ‘in dire straits’ means to be in a poor state, but many people would instead think of the massively successful […]

To be ‘in dire straits’ means to be in a poor state, but many people would instead think of the massively successful blues-rock group called Dire Straits, active from 1977 to 1988 and 1991 to 1995. They may have been in dire straits at the beginning, but their very first single, ‘Sultans of Swing’ was a big hit, initially in Europe, then the USA and the UK. This was the time of teenage punk rock and the well-crafted, warm, atmospheric style of Dire Straits was a breath of fresh air for the older audience.

Original group members were brothers Mark and David Knopfler, John Illsley and Pick Withers. Mark Knopfler was the front man, with his own laid-back singing style and brilliant guitar technique. Their biggest album was the 1985 classic ‘Brothers in Arms’, the first album to sell at least a million copies in the CD format. It actually sold thirty million copies in all. The group were keen to try digital technology and were among the first to put out music videos.

With over one hundred million record sales to their name, Dire Straits provided us with the enduring musical genius of Mark Knopfler and a sound that conjures up a decade.

(Image: Heinrich Klaffs at Flickr.com / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

09/04/2019
3 min
6 years
207 words

Law

Bobbies

Prior to the formation of professional police forces in the UK, law and order was dealt with at a local community level […]

Prior to the formation of professional police forces in the UK, law and order was dealt with at a local community level by a few trusted volunteers and some paid nightwatchmen. With the increase in the population during the Industrial Revolution, this became inadequate.

The City of Glasgow Police, established in 1800, was the first organised police body in the UK. Following this, Sir Robert Peel (1788-1850), who was Home Secretary twice and Prime Minister twice, assisted with the setting up of the Irish Constabulary in 1816 and, most famously, the Metropolitan Police in London in 1829. This is the origin of the first slang terms for the police ~ ‘the Peelers’ or ‘Bobbies‘ ~ both derived from his name.

Peel ensured that the aim of the police was to reduce incidents of crime, rather than to reach a target number of arrests. By the middle of the 19th century, there were police forces all over the UK. Today, there are thirty-nine in England, four in Wales, one in Northern Ireland and one in Scotland, plus four specialist forces. There are also many other nicknames for the police, including: coppers, the cops, the fuzz, old Bill, the rozzers, the boys in blue and Mr. Plod.

(Image: Richard Croft at geograph.org.uk / CC BY-SA 2.0)

08/04/2019
3 min
6 years
209 words

Religion

The Church of Scotland

The Protestant Church of Scotland (CofS) is the largest religion in Scotland and was formed in 1560, after The Reformation. It follows […]

The Protestant Church of Scotland (CofS) is the largest religion in Scotland and was formed in 1560, after The Reformation. It follows the Christian Bible and a 1647 document known as the ‘Westminster Confession of Faith’, although many members see this as outdated and would like to discard it. It has no bishops, but there is a hierarchy of Moderator, Principal Clerk, General Treasurer, councils, courts, committees, elders and ministers.

The Queen attends CofS services when she is in Scotland, but she is not the head of it. However, she and her representative, the Lord High Commissioner, are entitled to attend the CofS General Assembly conference each May. In the face of declining numbers in church (kirk) congregations, today there is more collaboration with the other Anglican churches in the UK than in the past. However, some kirks are being closed through lack of funds and ministers.

Nevertheless, the CofS continues its community projects which offer caring, nursing, befriending, sheltering and group-work opportunities. Its ‘Go For It Fund’ accepts grant applications from CofS-partnered community initiatives aimed at making a positive difference to people’s lives.

(Image: Bill Henderson at geograph.org.uk / CC BY-SA 2.0)

08/04/2019
3 min
6 years
192 words

Discoveries

Prince Madoc

It is said that the Welsh Prince Madoc went on a voyage of discovery and found North America, either in 1170 or […]

It is said that the Welsh Prince Madoc went on a voyage of discovery and found North America, either in 1170 or 562. There is no hard evidence for the later date but a few historians maintain that the earlier date can be verified by inscriptions and writings they have found on both sides of the Atlantic.

Either way, Prince Madoc’s story is impressive. In the 1170 version, he and one of his brothers (he was one of nineteen children) took to the sea to escape sibling rivalry after their father’s death. They took ten ships, landed somewhere on the east coast of North America and were thrilled to see such an expanse of land with so few inhabitants. Madoc returned to Wales to pick up more emigrants and they never came back again.

In the 562 version, Madoc was already at sea when a huge storm pushed him off course. After ten years of living in Kentucky, he returned in 572. In 574 he persuaded King Arthur II to return with him and seventy thousand emigrants, plus animals, in seven hundred boats. Welsh-speaking native Americans using Welsh-style coracles are an extraordinary addition to the story, but sadly have not yet been located.

(Image: liliy2025 at pixabay.com)

06/04/2019
3 min
6 years
204 words

Geography & Environment

March winds, April showers

Planet Earth’s climate changeability has seen at least five Ice Ages come and go up to now, but in the current interval […]

Planet Earth’s climate changeability has seen at least five Ice Ages come and go up to now, but in the current interval the UK’s springtime can be summed up in the old saying:

March winds and April showers,
Bring forth May flowers.

Andrew Lang included this in his 1897 collection of folk tales and rhymes entitled ‘The Nursery Rhyme Book’ and the weather conditions it describes are as true today as they were then.

They can be explained scientifically when one considers the seasonal movements of the jet streams and the gulf streams, along with the increasing hours of sunshine during springtime. The clash of air rising from warmer land with that from the cold seas causes windy weather in March, especially in the west, and rain showers quickly followed by outbreaks of sun in April.

The UK’s position off the north-west of the European continent subjects it to a whole variety of weather phenomena. Snow is not unknown in springtime, but usually there are cold, not quite freezing nights, with warm days. After this, in May the plants are ready to display their beautiful flowers.

(Image: Kenneth Mallard at geograph.org.uk / CC BY-SA 2.0)

06/04/2019
3 min
6 years
197 words

Celebrations & Holidays

Christmas Day

Christmas Day, on 25th December, is perhaps the biggest celebration of them all. It is one of only two days in the […]

Christmas Day, on 25th December, is perhaps the biggest celebration of them all. It is one of only two days in the UK when all shops are closed and it is coupled with Boxing Day as a two-day Bank Holiday. Although Christianity commandeered it as a remembrance of Jesus’s birthday and gave it their own name, it is fundamentally a secular holiday with ancient roots.

Saturnalia was the Roman Empire’s winter solstice festival, lasting a week and comprising drunkenness and general unruliness, while Yule was the British pagan equivalent. This lasted twelve days and was a fire festival in gratitude for the ‘re-birth’ of the sun. Pagan elements of Christmas include bringing a tree indoors and decorating it, hanging up mistletoe and holly, feasting, lighting candles, outdoor singing and gift-giving.

St. Nicholas (Santa Claus), who helped produce the New Testament in 325, was merged with the pagan god Woden, but his red suit and chubby red cheeks are entirely thanks to the advertising team at Coca Cola in 1931. Christmas today is a strange assortment of ancient and modern rituals, not least of which is the little white lie that otherwise honest parents feel compelled to tell their children about… shhh!

(Image: Karen Warfel at pixabay.com)

05/04/2019
3 min
6 years
207 words

Inventions

Television

Two Scotsmen played significant roles in the invention of the television, albeit in opposite directions. The route taken by the older of […]

Two Scotsmen played significant roles in the invention of the television, albeit in opposite directions. The route taken by the older of the two, Alan Campbell Swinton, FRS (1863-1930), proved to be the most productive. However, the younger man, John Logie Baird, FRSE (1888-1946), is more famous, even though his mechanical televisions soon became obsolete.

Campbell Swinton set out his ideas for constructing an electronic television using cathode ray tubes, in a letter entitled ‘Distant Electric Vision’ published in 1908. He gave more details in a lecture in 1911. Several engineers had been looking into developing a device for transmitting still and moving images, without much success, and Campbell Swinton gave them the way forward, omitting to patent any of his proposals.

He recognised the disadvantages of mechanical sets and advised the BBC against their use. Nevertheless, Baird was pioneering their production and was the first to demonstrate a working television, in 1926, on the basis of which he formed a manufacturing company. Two years later it was the first to broadcast to a ship and to New York. It also demonstrated the first colour and stereo images, but Philo Farnsworth in the USA was quickly overtaking the field with his Campbell Swinton-inspired electronic TV.

(Image: maxpixel.net)

05/04/2019
3 min
6 years
205 words

Sport

Real Tennis

Real tennis, or just ‘tennis’ to its aficionados, came long before lawn tennis, but is a rather niche sport today. It is […]

Real tennis, or just ‘tennis’ to its aficionados, came long before lawn tennis, but is a rather niche sport today. It is played in Britain, Australia, the USA and France and there are fewer than fifty professional courts, twenty-seven of which are in Britain. The world’s oldest tennis club still in operation is The Leamington Tennis Court Club, which opened in 1846 and offers real tennis amongst its exclusive facilities.

Real tennis is very different to lawn tennis..

Played indoors with handmade solid balls and wonky wooden rackets, the score words are the same as in lawn tennis ~ love, 15, 30, 40, deuce, advantage ~ and there is a net in the middle, but it requires more agility than its younger off-shoot. It also has a handicap system which rates ability so that players at different levels can still play each other.

Tennis was popular in the 16th century and King Henry VIII (1491-1547) was renowned as a skilled player, with courts built at Hampton Court Palace. It declined in the era of the Puritans but there was a revival in the 19th century. This was halted, however, by the invention of lawn tennis in the 1870s. This is when it became ‘real’.

(Image: Dani Lurie at Flickr.com / CC BY 2.0)

03/04/2019
3 min
6 years
207 words

Culture

Curry houses

In the 1970s/80s, going out for a meal in the evening became very popular and ‘going for an Indian’ meant that you […]

In the 1970s/80s, going out for a meal in the evening became very popular and ‘going for an Indian’ meant that you were going to a curry house. As most curry houses (restaurants) opened until quite late, it was the destination of choice for any group of people finishing off a night on the town, rather drunk and competing with each other to consume the spiciest curry on the menu!

The British who lived in India from the eighteenth century onwards developed a taste for the cuisine and wanted to reproduce it on their return home. Not all of the spices were available in Britain and the first published curry recipe, in 1747, only included pepper corns and coriander seeds. Author Hannah Glasse later added more spices to her instructions ~ “To make a Currey, the India Way” ~ in her best-selling book, ‘The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy’.

The first curry houses appeared at the beginning of the 1800s, but it was a century later that their number multiplied, firstly in London and then in other areas where immigrants from South Asia settled. The oldest curry house still in business today is the Veeraswamy in London, which opened in 1926.

*Many curry dishes have been devised specially for the British market, along with the all-encompassing ‘curry powder’. Image: Rosemary Potter at cookipedia.co.uk / CC BY 4.0*

(Top image: Chan Walrus at pexels.com)

02/04/2019
3 min
6 years
233 words

English language

Mr. Men and Little Misses

Father and son, Roger and Adam Hargreaves, created the Mr. Men and Little Miss series of children’s books. Roger (1935-88) was born […]

Father and son, Roger and Adam Hargreaves, created the Mr. Men and Little Miss series of children’s books. Roger (1935-88) was born in Yorkshire and always enjoyed drawing cartoons. In 1971 his son, Adam (born in 1963), famously asked him what a tickle looked like, which was the inspiration for the very first book ~ ‘Mr. Tickle’. Adam was destined to continue as author-illustrator of the brand after his father’s death.

The first Mr. Men books were so successful that just three years after they began, an animation series appeared on TV. The Little Miss books were launched in 1981 with ‘Little Miss Bossy’. Currently, there are ninety-one different characters and each one is named after a personality trait. The light-hearted story goes on to show the pros or cons of displaying this type of behaviour, often with the help of other Mr. Men or Little Miss characters.

The brand has seen sales of 100,000,000 books worldwide, with off-shoots such as comic strips, songs, advertising adaptations, merchandising, Google doodles and London Underground posters. Children’s literature has always had a moralising side, popular with parents, and a delightfully humorous side, loved by children, and the Mr. Men and Little Misses tick both of those boxes.

(Image: Allan Leonard at Flickr.com / CC BY NC 2.0)

29/03/2019
3 min
6 years
211 words

Entertainment

Sir Tom Jones

Sir Tom Jones, OBE, was born into a mining family in Pontypridd, South Wales, in 1940 as Thomas Woodward. He was soon […]

Sir Tom Jones, OBE, was born into a mining family in Pontypridd, South Wales, in 1940 as Thomas Woodward. He was soon singing and loved to take the spotlight as a soloist. He suffered a bout of tuberculosis in his early teens but by the age of sixteen was married with a child on the way. His son, Mark (1957-), went on to become his manager in 1986.

Tom got his show business break in 1963 when he was talent-spotted whilst singing in a group in his home area. He was whisked off to London, changed his name to Tom Jones and signed a recording contract. His second record was ‘It’s Not Unusual’ and this reached no. 1 in the charts in 1965. He amassed huge numbers of adoring female fans who were dazzled by his looks, his swinging hips and his punchy style of conducting the band..

In the same year he met and became friends with his hero, Elvis Presley. Tom and his family moved to Los Angeles in 1974 and he performed regularly in Las Vegas. He has had hits even in his seventies and is currently a coach on The Voice TV programme in the UK.

(Image: Wayne Dilger at Flickr.com / CC BY-ND 2.0)

28/03/2019
3 min
6 years
203 words

Religion

The Salvation Army

The Salvation Army is otherwise known as ‘the Sally Army’ in the UK, where it has around 50,000 followers. It was founded […]

The Salvation Army is otherwise known as ‘the Sally Army’ in the UK, where it has around 50,000 followers. It was founded in 1865 by William and Catherine Booth in East London as a ‘mission’, before evolving into the Salvation Army in 1878. Once the name ‘Army’ was adopted, it determined the organisation’s structure. William Booth was its first General. The clergy titles are army ranks, all the way down to cadets. They wear uniforms with épaulettes and their churches are called citadel corps.

The Salvation Army has a strong evangelical purpose and is well-known for going into deprived areas and pubs in an effort to spread its message of following the teachings of Jesus Christ. Pub landlords have had Salvationists arrested for alleged interference with their right to conduct a business, since they are against the drinking of alcohol.

Originally for protection from physical attack, the brass band is another feature of the Sally Army’s ventures out to engage with the public. Their work includes running charity shops, refuges and rehabilitation centres and they have bases in over one hundred countries. One of their slogans is ‘the three Ss’..

Soup, soap and salvation.

(Image of a Salvation Army charity shop: N. Chadwick at geograph.org.uk / CC BY-SA 2.0)

27/03/2019
3 min
6 years
208 words

Posts pagination

Previous 1 … 43 44 45 … 64 Next

Quoting Neil Oliver...

I love Britain more than anywhere else in the world. With all my heart I declare that those of us born here, or who have made a home here by choice, are the luckiest, most blessed of all people. I am British. I will always be British.