I went to school in Durham. Belmont Comp, then Durham Johnston. Durham High School for Girls was posh. Prim green uniforms. This will be the first year since the late nineteenth century that there isn’t a new intake at DHS. It closed over the summer, following a takeover by a Chinese education company. There are … Read more
As you may know County Durham has a Reform Council. Predictably their first acts in power were to cut funding for Lumiere, the City’s award win light art festival that brought hundreds of thousands to the City, and to stop funding for Pride. The money instead will be used for special political advisors to do … Read more
Durham is an odd place. Not odd in an exciting way — my kids always called it Dullham. But odd nonetheless. The city was shaped by two very different forces. The first is intellectual and religious. Durham is the shrine of Saint Cuthbert and the burial place of the Venerable Bede, home to an ancient … Read more
VE Day at 80: Bombs, Black Cats and the Fog of War My Grandpa was too old to fight in World War Two. He was a schoolteacher, and served as an Air Raid Warden during the war. The Air Raid Warden Service was set up in 1937. Wardens were responsible for reporting bomb incidents, reassuring … Read more