Wildlife Aid Foundation
In Britain, we like to think of ourselves as ‘animal lovers’ and there are many organisations that are devoted to the care […]
Read MoreAuthor: 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 public domain sources, usually more.
Graham & Damon Hill, F1 champions
Graham Hill, OBE (1929-1975) became Formula 1 racing car champion in 1962 and 1968. His son, Damon Hill (1960-), followed in his […]
Read MoreGraham Hill, OBE (1929-1975) became Formula 1 racing car champion in 1962 and 1968. His son, Damon Hill (1960-), followed in his father’s footsteps and became Formula 1 champion in 1996. Like his father, he was born in London and he was also awarded the OBE after his achievement.
They were the first father-son pair to achieve F1’s top accolade. Graham Hill did not live to see his son’s career, as he died in a light aircraft crash in thick fog when Damon was just 15. Tragically, Graham had retired from driving just a few months earlier, in a period when the sport was much more dangerous than it is now, but he had survived.
Damon Hill is currently (2018) a Formula 1 commentator on the Sky Sports channel.
(Top image of Damon Hill in 1994: Martin Lee at Flickr.com / CC BY-SA 2.0)
The stone circles at Avebury
The Neolithic stone circles at Avebury, roughly 23 miles from Stonehenge in Wiltshire, were among many hundreds of such circles in Britain. […]
Read MoreThe Neolithic stone circles at Avebury, roughly 23 miles from Stonehenge in Wiltshire, were among many hundreds of such circles in Britain. There are numerous theories as to how they were built and what they were used for, including the idea that they match certain features on Mars…
At Avebury there is a massive henge with a stone circle placed just inside its perimeter. This is Britain’s largest stone circle, having a diameter of over 1,000ft.. Inside that circle were two smaller circles but not much remains of these. At least one of the stones weighed over 100 tons.
It is thought that there were ninety-eight stones originally at Avebury. However, in the early 14th century and again in the late 17th/early 18th century, spates of religious zeal saw local people destroying them. One man was crushed to death under one of the stones as it fell and he was not able to be given a religious burial. It was this event which halted the first bout of destruction.
Inside the henge is the very picturesque 400-year-old Red Lion pub.
(Top image: Rxfelix at Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 3.0)
Blackpool Illuminations
Blackpool in Lancashire has been a popular seaside resort since the mid-18th century. When electric lights were invented, Blackpool’s town council took […]
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Eric Clapton
Eric Clapton (nicknamed ‘Slow Hand’) was born as Eric Patrick Clapp in 1945 in Surrey and spent his youth immersed in American […]
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Religious freedom
Battles between different religions have played a huge part in UK political history. Thankfully, we have religious freedom today and this is […]
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David Hockney
David Hockney is an artist of extraordinary talent. He was born in Bradford, Yorkshire, in 1937 and attended two Colleges of Art […]
Read MoreDavid Hockney is an artist of extraordinary talent. He was born in Bradford, Yorkshire, in 1937 and attended two Colleges of Art before moving to Los Angeles. There he produced his series of paintings of swimming pools using a beautifully precise, partly abstract style with bright, pure colours.
He has created works in other media – photography, for instance – and has explored the use of modern technology, but he says that “painting can’t die because photography is not good enough, actually” (PBSNewsHour, 2018). This was at the time of his recent exhibition entitled ’82 Portraits and 1 Still-Life’. He is said to have described each portrait as a ’20-hour exposure’.
Another of his recent works was a stained-glass window at Westminster Abbey, commissioned to celebrate the reign of Queen Elizabeth II (1926-2022). True to form, he used the latest technology – an iPad – to design its brightly-coloured countryside scene.
(Top images LtoR: Connaissance des Arts at Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 3.0 & Francisco Anzola at Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 2.0)
The Mini
In 1959 the British Motor Company (BMC) launched the Mini to meet public demand for smaller cars with more economical petrol consumption. […]
Read MoreIn 1959 the British Motor Company (BMC) launched the Mini to meet public demand for smaller cars with more economical petrol consumption. It was innovative not just on the exterior but also under the bonnet, having one of the first front-wheel-drive systems.
It was fun to drive, easy to park and it soon became a 1960s icon. The Mini Cooper S was the sporty version and it won the Monte Carlo Rally several times in that decade. Up until 2000, when production ceased, almost 5.4 million Minis had been sold in the UK and abroad.
Since 2000, BMW has owned the name and has rebranded it as the ‘MINI’. Their car has similar looks to the old Mini, and, in a nod to its British ancestor, has a Union Jack picture on its rear lights!
(Top image: Mark Brown at Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 2.0)
The Master of Suspense
Sir Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980) from Essex, dubbed ‘The Master of Suspense‘, was born into a family of shopkeepers. After dabbling in engineering, […]
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Red squirrels
The red squirrel is native to the UK, going back thousands of years, but its numbers are now a small percentage of […]
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UFO/UAP reporting
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) closed its telephone hotline for the reporting of UFO sightings in 2009. This was perhaps partly because […]
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Anti-social behaviour
The Home Office describes anti-social behaviour as, “any aggressive, intimidating or destructive activity that damages or destroys another person’s quality of life”. […]
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