Crown and Anchor
An Army gambling game I came across in the John Masters book ‘Now God be Thanked’ was Crown and Anchor. After some investigation I found that Crown and Anchor was…
Bank Raid at Comanche, Texas
This is an interesting article about a bank robbery in Comanche, Comanche County, Texas which neighbors Brown County to the west. “M.E. “Boss” Greene Chases Outlaw Joe HornerPosted on June…
Two-up
The Australian Oxford Dictionary defines two-up (or swy) as “a gambling game in which coins are spun in the air and bets placed on a showing of two heads or…
The Wrong Letter
Sometimes in the chaos of war, sad mistakes were made. This article published in the Eastbourne Gazette on 18th September 1918, highlights this. It was fortunate for Mr and Mrs…
The Niespulver Shell
A bizarre episode took place at the battle of Neuve Chapelle in October 1914, it was in fact the first ‘gas’ attack of the war, but not the deadly ‘mustard’…
The Bentley Boys
The Bentley Boys were a group of gentlemen racers who drove Bentley sports cars to victory in the 1920s. In 1925, as the marque foundered, Bentley Boy Woolf Barnato bought…
The Telephone
The telephone in the thirties was a new invention. Mr. R. Cunningham recalls his childhood in Glasgow and his parents installing their new communication device. “In the early thirties…
Going to the Commodore in Hammersmith
Denis Thompson remembers his childhood and the enjoyment he got from the variety of entertainment offered at the Cinema in the Thirties. “During the thirties the cinema really came into…
Pumping the Church Organ
Jessie Lintern was the daughter of a United Free Church minister in Scotland, in the 1930’s she was bought up to go to church and her brother was given an…
A Second Hand Morris Cowley
Hazel Rolf recalls her experience growing up when her father purchased a used Morris Cowley in 1931 “Dad bought a second hand Morris Cowley car for thirty pounds and we…