Catherine Foster; the inquest

Just to recap (though it may assist you if you read this and the next couple of episodes by starting from the previous blog), the God-fearing young farm worker John Foster, a one-time neighbour o’mine, swallowed poison from his wife during dinner on Tuesday night November 17, 1846. Within minutes he was sick as a… Continue reading Catherine Foster; the inquest

“Useful present for a soldier”

Napoleon called the British a nation of shopkeepers. As the first Christmas of the 1914-18 war neared, those shopkeepers of Britain were concerned the country might be distracted from being a nation of customers. To remedy it for that year and throughout the war, much marketing effort was put into keeping the home tills ringing.… Continue reading “Useful present for a soldier”

“In consequence of having had the screw put on…”

Every once in a while you bump into something you weren’t looking for, but the happenstance makes you smile. Although FH Lewisson of Auckland, New Zealand has been dead this many a long year, you have to have hoped that this small businessman’s direct, impassioned and charming appeal from Ocotber 1879 worked and he was… Continue reading “In consequence of having had the screw put on…”

Local newspapers have a death wish

On British local newspapers, traditionally that time-honoured apprenticeship of newsgathering, ill-fitted Fleet Street tricks are being aped. You can see this for yourself in headline language used to “big up” a story. “Council boss hits out over bins horror”, “Attendance at village fete plunges”, “Pensioner anguish over dead squirrel”, “Government cuts threaten charity panto”; you… Continue reading Local newspapers have a death wish