Aknight in around 1250

Towards the end of this period knights were dressed as is this figure here. The mail is now a tight-fitting suit that includes boots and gauntlets. The helmet is smooth and rounded to deflect blows and has a visor over the face that can be lifted up to make breathing easier when not in actual combat. The oblong pennant on the lance shows that this man is a "knight-banneret", that is a knight who has been given permission by his lord to carry this sort of a decoration. Such permission was usually won by a feat of valour in battle and gave the knight prestige among his fellows.

The Lambourn Valley Railway in Berkshire - an economic case

It was not just horses that drew the LVR to Lambourn. If the upper downs were ideal for horses, the lower lush pastures were ideal for cattle. Those cattle produced two important products for the farmers. The first were prime young steers that could be slaughtered for meat, leather and other products. Throughout the 19th century these young animals were driven by road down to Newbury on Thursdays, market day, to be sold and then shipped out by rail. The journey by road was lengthy and tiring for cattle and farmer alike. Both would benefit if they were taken out by rail.

The second major product of cattle at Lambourn was milk. If the road trip to Newbury was an inconvenience for animals going to slaughter, it was potentially disastrous for milk. For centuries fresh milk was consumed within a few hours of being taken from the cow. Were the fresh milk left any longer it would go off. The vast majority of milk was converted into butter or cheese as these would keep much longer. Dairy farmers, such as those in the Lambourn Valley, turned all their milk into butter or cheese, and fed the leftover whey to pigs.

Louis Pasteur had invented the pasteurisation process for preserving fresh milk in 1862 and it had reached England within a very few years. Pasteurised milk would last a day or two before turning sour. For the first time milk could be transported from rural farm to town with a fair chance of it arriving in a fit state to drink. Even so, speed of transportation was key and the farmers of the Lambourn Valley were left out. They had to rely on a slow, jolting horse cart to get their milk to Newbury, and the journey - especially in summer - was impracticable. A train journey, however, was much faster and smoother. The LVR knew that they could guarantee that milk taken from cows in the early morning in Lambourn could be taken by train to Newbury to be pasteurised and then moved on to London in order to be in shops in time for the morning shoppers. The farmers would gain a new and more lucrative market for their milk, and the LVR would have another profitable freight.

Once again the actual profits would outstrip expectations. Once farmers knew that they could reliably get their fresh milk to market they began to produce more of it. Milk production in the valley is thought to have tripled in the first twenty years of the LVR. Other agricultural produce from the valley - watercress, straw and vegetables - enjoyed a similarly impressive boost from the coming of the railway.

The Kings German Legion

The King of Britain was also the King of Hanover at this date. In 1803 Hanover was conquered by France and its army disbanded. The British government appealed to the Hanoverian soldiers to come to Britain to join a new armed force to continue the struggle against France, and several thousands did so. The result was the King's German Legion, which eventually came to include two regiments of heavy cavalry, three of light cavalry and eight of infantry, plus six batteries of cannon.

The King's German Legion (KGL) was reckoned to be every bit as professional and effective as the regular British army, with many people believing its cavalry were better than the British. Units of the KGL were present in the Peninsular War from the start of British involvement at Vimiero through to the Battle of Toulouse. Their uniforms and equipment, which were all supplied by Britain, generally followed British styles with a few minor distinguishing features.

Sir John Strangways declares for the King, 1642

When the English Civil War broke out in 1642 the county of Dorset was one of the most divided in the kingdom. Most of the towns, except Dorchester, declared for Parliament while most of the countryside was for the King. The owner of Abbotsbury at the time was Sir John Strangways, one of the most prominent Royalists in the county

Strangways had been born in 1585 and was elected to Parliament several times between 1614 and 1629 as well as serving as Sheriff of Dorset. He held a number of other local government positions and visited Court many times. When Charles summoned Parliament in 1640 for the first time in 11 years, Strangways was elected MP for Weymouth, despite his known support for King Charles and Weymouth's Parliamentarian sympathies.

In Parliament, Strangways argued long and hard in favour of the King's case, proving to be one of Charles's more able supporters in Parliament. When the war broke out, Strangways slipped away from London to return to Dorset. In September 1642 Parliament voted to expel all those MPs who had sided with the king, so Strangways lost his seat. This does not seem to have bothered him much for he was busy organising the Royalist cause in Dorset.

Among Strangways many achievements was the fortification of his manor house in Abbotsbury. The house itself provided useful rooms for a garrison of 200 men, with their horses stabled nearby, while the adjacent church was used as a storehouse with a lookout posted on top of the tower. Around the house and church were dug a complex of earthen ditches and ramparts, topped by timber palisades and walls. By the standards of the time these were not powerful defences, but they were good enough to safeguard against a surprise attack.

The garrison at Abbotsbury soon came to be an important one due to its strategic position. Weymouth to the east was a powerful Parliamentarian fortress, but its economic value was as a port. By closing the routes inland from Weymouth with garrisons at Abbotsbury and Dorchester, the Royalists stopped Weymouth producing money for Parliament and made it more of a liability than an asset. The Royalist soldiers based at Abbotsbury patrolled the roads and countryside, ensuring that Weymouth remained cut off.

William Shakespeare

Voted the Man of the Millennium in 1999, William Shakespeare is one of the greatest writers in the English language and one of the world’s finest dramatists.

Possibly the writer the finest English literature ever written, William Shakespeare came from comparatively humble origins, William Shakespeare became the most famous dramatist of his age, mixed with nobility and met royalty. He achieved all this through his skill with the pen.

Shakespeare was born on 23rd April 1564 in Stratford-on-Avon in Warwickshire. His father was a glove maker and wool merchant who took an active part in local government. Although he had a fairly prosperous business, Shakespeare’s father often experienced cash flow problems when his debtors wanted their money before he was paid for work done. Nevertheless, Shakespeare was given a good education and joined his father’s business. In 1582 he married Anne Hathaway, a farmer’s daughter form nearby Shottery, and six months later their first daughter was born. Twins followed in 1585 and young William decided to seek a more reliable income than he could achieve helping his father.

Shakespeare knew the theatre from the London troupes which came on tour to Stratford, and he began to earn some money writing plays for them to perform. In 1592 Shakespeare’s King Henry VI part 1 was playing to packed audiences in London. The Rose Theatre put on several of Shakespeare’s early works, including Richard III and the Taming of the Shrew. then disaster seemed to strike Shakespeare’s new career. Plague broke out in London and the authorities blamed its rapid spread on the large crowds at theatres. Theatres were closed down.

Out of work as a playwright, Shakespeare turned to poetry. The money was not so good, but his elegant treatment of love, honour and revenge - subjects popular among the nobility - brought his work to the attention of important men at court, and even to royalty.

When the theatres were allowed to reopen in 1594 Shakespeare’s new fame put him into a position to be a joint owner of a new company, the Chamberlain’s Men. Performed the great tragic actor Richard Burbage and the comic genius Will Kempe, Shakespeare’s plays reached new heights of popularity. The Merchant of Venice, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Richard II and As You Like It all belong to this booming period. But Shakespeare’s fortunes were about to get even better. In 1598 the Chamberlain’s Men opened a new theatre in Southwark, south of the Thames. It was built to be bigger and better than any other theatre, with a balcony and cellar to allow all manner of stage effects. The Globe, as the theatre was called, was phenomenally successful. For the next ten years, Shakespeare earned a large sum of money from his writings and part ownership of the troupe.

In 1608, at the age of 44, Shakespeare gave up full time employment in the theatre. His father was dead and his children were marrying. Shakespeare felt it was time for him to assume his duties as head of an increasingly large family. He used the money had earned from the London stage to purchase houses and lands in and around Stratford. He died in 1616, though it is not known from what cause.

Shakespeare’s writings gained enormous popularity from his knack of appealing to popular tastes. When the public wanted comedies, he wrote comedies. When a tame performing bear was available he included a bear in the play. But his subsequent fame proved to be so enduring because of his treatment of character. Shakespeare could create the words and dialogue that revealed the true depth of his characters. Unlike some other playwrights, Shakespeare did not allow the story to drive his characters. Instead his characters created the storyline by their jealousies, loves and ambitions. The unique gift of combining massive popular appeal with highly skilled writing was unique to Shakespeare. There have been better playwrights and there have been more popular playwrights, but nobody has outdone him in the combination of the two.

The Fall of France 1940

In the spring of 1940 the German army overran country after country as Hitler pursued his ambition of making Germany the most powerful state in Europe.

The seemingly unstoppable German advances began on 9th April when a combined air, sea and land assault overran Denmark in a single morning. Norway was next, with German forces landing at Bergen, Trondheim, Kristiansand and Narvik. A British fleet, which had been off the Norwegian coast to lay mines, attacked the German invasion fleets, but was heavily outnumbered. The Norwegians held out in the mountains for almost a month, the final units surrendering on the 5th May.

It soon became clear that the invasions of Denmark and Norway had been merely sideshows, designed to secure the German flank. On 10th May the main German attack began as they invaded Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg and France. The largest French army was in the south, defending the Franco-German border, though many units joined the British in advancing into Belgium to attempt to hold the line of the Dyle River. 

But the Germans were using their new Blitzkrieg tactics. Large columns of tanks, armoured vehicles and motorised infantry supported by heavy artillery and bombing from aircraft thrust deep behind the British and French lines. While the British were holding firm in Belgium, they were being outflanked to the south. On the 17th Lord Gort, the British Commander, decided to start planning his retreat. First he tried a counter-attack with his tanks, but although the British achieved a limited local advance, it did nothing to stop the surging German advance towards the sea.   

On the 20th May the Germans reached the sea at Abbeville. The British army and many French units were isolated from the main French army to the south. Lord Gort turned to the navy to evacuate his men. The navy responded with Operation Dynamo, a hastily put together plan which involved getting the army on to ships in Dunkirk Harbour while a rearguard held off the advancing Germans.

On the evening of the 26th the first troops began to be loaded on to ships. It soon became clear the navy could not get the men off in time, so an appeal went out for small boats - such as trawlers, fishing boats, yachts and pleasure boats - which could get close enough to the beach to pick up soldiers direct from the land.

On the 28th the Belgians surrendered, opening a weak flank in the British position around Dunkirk. Having halted for a few days to regroup, the Germans attacked again, plunging Dunkirk into a storm of bombs and artillery fire. Several of the ships and boats trying to rescue the army were sunk, others badly damaged. The harbour facilities were almost totally destroyed and by the 1st June only a single pier remained open for use.

The evacuation carried on as German bombers pounded the beaches and ships and as the German troops moved ever closer. Finally at 2.40am on 4th June the destroyer HMS Malcolm pulled out of Dunkirk. The rescued Scottish troops on board played their bagpipes as the ship cruised slowly along the beaches of Dunkirk. Nobody was to be seen on the beaches. The only troops left were the dead, badly wounded and the heroic rearguard still holding off the Germans. The Malcolm turned away and headed for Dover.

In all some 338,000 men were rescued from Dunkirk. Although the British army had been forced to leave behind its tanks and guns, it came home more or less intact. The way in which ordinary civilians had sailed into the storm of gunfire in their little yachts to rescue the army and th the warm welcome given the troops when they arrived exhausted back home gave rise to what was called the Dunkirk Spirit, a feeling that everyone in Britain had to pull together to fight and win the war.

In France, meanwhile, the German army swung south after taking Dunkirk. On the 10th June the Germans broke through th the new French line and on the 14th the French government fled from Paris. Three days later the French asked Germany for terms of surrender. The few British, Polish and Czechs troops left in France at once rushed to sea ports to get away before the final surrender. On 22nd June, France surrendered. Britain was alone.

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Why I did research on No.50 Squadron of the RAF

I came to Dover to look for the remains of the World War II radar station that stood on Swingate Down and was known as CH04. I knew that much of the radar station had been dismantled in the 1950s, but that the main mast had been retained and converted to broadcast BBC radio stations across Kent and the English Channel.

It took a bit of nosing about, but I eventually found the place. It was not until I got there and read the information board that I realised that CH04 had been built on the site of an earlier airfield that had been used by the RAF in the 1920s, and before then by the RFC in World War I. I made a note of the fact,and decided to look into this RFC airfield another time. Some while later, I had the opportunity to investigate RFC Swingate Down. It had been opened in 1914 to serve as a stop for refuelling aircraft on their way out to France, and then used for training purposes.

So far so good. But what intrigued me was that in the summer of 1916 the airfield at Swingate Down was recorded as having been the home base for a squadron of scouts (as fighter aircraft were then known) – and that the squadron in question had been No.50 Squadron. What puzzled me was that I knew that in World War II No.50 Squadron had been a heavy bomber squadron. Yet here it was in 1916 as a fighter squadron. Not only that but a little further research turned up the name of the squadron’s commanding officer: Major Arthur Harris.

So not only had one of World War II’s premier bomber squadrons been a fighter unit in World War I, but the great and famous Arthur “Bomber” Harris had been a fighter pilot. I was now thoroughly hooked. No.50 Squadron, its men and machines became a focus of research for me.