The Cigarmaker’s Gift
My great-great-grandfather, James Thomas Ashworth (1849-1890) was a cigarmaker, who lived in Bermondsey. There’s no surviving photos of him, as far as I k...
Category: Elsewhere (not Essex or Suffolk)
A Birmingham mystery: is this brick really 132 years old?
On the junction of Greenfield Road and Vivian Road in Harborne, Birmingham, some refurb work has recently taken place on what was once a furniture upholsterer&#...
Exhibition reviews: “Terror & Wonder” and “Sherlock Holmes”
It was my birthday and I wanted a treat, and seeing as two quite interesting exhibitions were on in London, it seemed as good an excuse as any to wend my way te...
Inspector Whicher, Sergeant Cuff, Mr. Holmes, Monsieur Poirot
Yesterday[1]I started to write this on Christie’s birthday, but this behemoth could not be completed in one day. was Agatha Christie’s 124th birthda...
Things you’ll see in “Ripper Street” series 3. Honest.
Filming has finished on the third series of late-Victorian, plaid-encrusted crime-drama Ripper Street. Huzzah! Herewith, illustrated in 19th century engravings,...
Jack the Ripper DNA test proves… not very much, really
My friend Anna asked me what I think about the DNA testing which apparently “proves” that Aaron Kosminski was the infamous Jack the Ripper. I posted...
An airy thought….
There I was, opening another marriage register, ready to transcribe, when I spotted something, which took my mind far from the nuptials of the people of Essex, ...
Further afield…
Today, I went for a wander around the churchyard at St. Peter’s in Harborne, a suburb to the west of Birmingham. No, not in Essex or Suffolk, but a wonder...