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  • Letters from a Witch’s Clients January 25, 2016

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
    Letters from a Witch's Clients

    In 1859 a unique witchcraft source appeared in the British newspapers. Durham police had raided the house of one Mrs Leadpiper and had seized a number of letters from her supplicants. To our great good fortune the Durham Chronicle published several: and the article was then picked up by other papers from Cornwall to Luton. […]

    New History Books: Fall of the Double Eagle January 24, 2016

    Author: Beach Combing | in : New History Books
    New History Books: Fall of the Double Eagle

    John R. Schindler, Fall of the Double Eagle I’m a big Schindler fan, looking forward to reading this…

    An Outstanding Italian Ghost Story January 24, 2016

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
    An Outstanding Italian Ghost Story

    This is an Italian memory of a British traveller, it is also a rather good ghost story. The non consequality of many of the events is effective. I had the pleasure many years ago of staying for some days at San Donato, in Chianti. It is about thirty miles from Florence. The way of life […]

    New History Books: Of Beards and Men January 23, 2016

    Author: Beach Combing | in : New History Books
    New History Books: Of Beards and Men

    Oldstone-Moore, Of Beards and Men This is a favourite subject of mine: let’s hope the book lives up…

    Film, History and Memory January 23, 2016

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Contemporary, Medieval, Modern
    Film, History and Memory

    ***Dedicated to David*** In a recent reflection about the way we remember the past, this blogger made the case that after about two hundred years we cease to ‘own’ history. ‘For Beach Waterloo seems, somehow, ‘present’. Anything before that date seems, meanwhile, completely out of reach, as if the historical imagination falls down into a […]

    Daily History Picture: Kennedy Hates Nixon January 22, 2016

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical Pictures
    Daily History Picture: Kennedy Hates Nixon

    Smile for the cameras…

    Ghost Hangs Four in New Orleans January 22, 2016

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
    Ghost Hangs Four in New Orleans

    Here is an American story (of who knows what veracity) that got sucked across the Atlantic and into the British newspapers: WDP, 22 Nov 1872, 3. Few positions in life can be imagined more disagreeable than that of being imprisoned in a haunted cell in police station. The New Orleans Times tells a most unpleasant […]

    Daily History Picture: Modern Times January 21, 2016

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical Pictures
    Daily History Picture: Modern Times

    Fox hunt problems with new arrival…

    Churn Milk Peg January 21, 2016

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
    Churn Milk Peg

    There are few greater pleasures than bringing half- or three-quarter forgotten British bogeys back from the dead. Churn-Milk Peg was a psychotic old dear who would sit in glades of nut trees and smoke a pipe, waiting for children to come along to pick from her trees: ‘churn milk nuts’ were unripe nuts. In as […]

    Daily History Picture: Execution January 20, 2016

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical Pictures
    Daily History Picture: Execution

    Stanislaus Lacroix, Quebec 1902

    Bosom Serpents and False Operations January 20, 2016

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Ancient, Contemporary, Modern
    Bosom Serpents and False Operations

    Bosom serpents refers to the belief that an animal, typically a reptile or amphibian has taken up residence in a human body. Two truisms to start with. First, there is no way that these animals could live in a human body. Second, if the patient believed in the BoS, the doctor had to deal with […]

    Daily History Picture: Early Wheelie January 19, 2016

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical Pictures
    Daily History Picture: Early Wheelie

    Mainstreet America…

    Why Did Germany Screw Up in 1940? January 19, 2016

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Contemporary
    Why Did Germany Screw Up in 1940?

    The survival of Britain from May to October 1940 is one of the most stirring stories of the Second World War. Britain as Lukacs noted could never have won the war alone but in the first summer of the war Britain could have lost it. From 1936 to early May 1940 the UK had made […]

    Daily History Picture: Early Clinton January 18, 2016

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical Pictures
    Daily History Picture: Early Clinton

    He was four. Such innocence?

    Victorian Urban Legends: Coffin Games January 18, 2016

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
    Victorian Urban Legends: Coffin Games

    ***Dedicated to Chris W*** Beach in his tiny hours of research ran across two accounts that feel like Victorian urban legends: a favourite theme of this blog. Note the lack of concrete references. These look as if they were included in a joke column and then recycled as news with some salacious details thrown in… A Sheffield […]