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My top five favourite books

10 January 2021 by C. M. Harald

A few months ago, a colleague asked me what my favourite book was. She was looking to put together a display of the different books staff read, while encouraging literacy amongst the students. I struggled to pick just one book. Eventually, I sent back a student ‘safe’ suggestion, aware that I might not want younger students to be reading some of my favourite books, yet.

Below are my top five favourite books, but if you asked me on a different day, you may get a different list. I’ve struggled with which ones to add to this list, for example, I have left off several classic books. Those missing out include the ‘Mars’ trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson. I love these books for the depth they include, not just hard-sci-fi, but also the Cold War inspired political backdrop. The gruesome ‘Rats’ trilogy, by James Herbert, probably the first horror books I really enjoyed, are also left out. I’ve even left out the ‘Commonwealth’ saga by Peter F Hamilton and the newer ‘Remembrance of Earth’s Past’ trilogy by Liu Cixin. So what have I included?

Please note, links in the text below are not affiliate and I receive no payment for them.

‘Shogun’ by James Clavell

I first read Shogun in the mid-1990s and was soon drawn into its complex plots and vivid storytelling. This was one of several large books I read during the 1990s. But that didn’t stop me, and I soon flew through ‘The Asian Saga’. Rarely have I seen Clavell’s depth of world building outside of science fiction and fantasy. I suppose I could have added any of Clavell’s saga to my list of favourite books.

‘The Reader’ by Bernard Schlink

‘The Reader’ was a novel I read while undertaking postgraduate study in history. It was a fascinating reconciliation of Germany’s guilt regarding the Holocaust and the war with Germans born after the war. Simply asking whether Germans should be guilty for the sins of their parents and grandparents, and how should they post-war Germans relate to their elders. These where important questions at a time of German reunification as Germany confronted its past.

‘The Age of Extremes’ by Eric Hobsbawm

This is the only non-fiction book on my list and is one of the most influential history books I have read. I first read it not long after it was published, the final part in Hobsbawm’s Ages series. It was revealing, as Hobsbawm was one of the school of British Marxist historians and had continued to favour communist principles despite the collapse of the Soviet bloc. This book was the first occasion I came across the concepts the ‘long’ 19th and ‘short’ 20th centuries, an idea which has become central to many interpretations.

While the ideas of the British Marxist historians seem a little dated now, they were essential to the opening up of historical debate within the UK. These historians were part of a broad movement which looked beyond elites, the upper classes and political history, instead focusing on the experience of the everyday man and woman. It was exciting time to be studying history as the story of the everyday person was being revealed, even if Hobsbawm himself focused on traditional political narratives.

‘Red Storm Rising’ by Tom Clancy

Growing up in the 70s and 80s, and in a family with strong military connections, I was extremely aware of the Cold War. I spent a lot of time around military bases. When I got ‘Red Storm Rising’ as a Christmas present, I soon got into the story. By the time I read this novel, I had already played the PC game ‘Harpoon’, which had been used to play test aspects of the novel. I’ve always kept a soft spot for Tom Clancy novels even though they are mass-market. He uses great pace, plotting, and continuity of characters. This led to me reading a series of other Cold War-gone-hot style fiction. Included among these were ‘Team Yankee’, ‘Chieftain’, and ‘The Third World War’ by John Hackett. The later is one of my favourite counterfactual books.

‘The Riddle of the Sands’ by Erskine Childers

While at university I finally branched out my interests in history, which had mainly been focused on World War II, the Cold War, and the Industrial Revolution. I became quite interested in late Victorian and early Edwardian history. This 1903 novel was extremely influential before the First World War. It tapped into the popular invasion fears which were being fed by both the British popular tabloid newspapers and the changing balance of continental power.

With the growing threat to British naval supremacy, especially Germany’s construction of a modern battle fleet, coupled with the revolutionary dreadnought design of battleships, Britain felt a growing threat from Germany. They had based most invasion fears prior to this around the French, and even occasionally Czarist Russia.

Childers came up with this classic, drawing upon his own knowledge of the North Sea German islands. The novel was a great success, even adding to the political debate on the Royal Navy development and the shifting continental alliances. To me it is an important book, as it led me to investigate the naval arms race in my undergraduate dissertation. It was also consciously in my mind as I wrote the first draft of my last Royal Zombie Corps book.

The Lehman Trilogy – a night at the theatre

28 May 2019 by C. M. Harald

I make no pretence to being a theatre reviewer. I simply have the good fortune to live on the edge of London. This gives me the opportunity to visit the theatre every few months. To be fair, I am far more inclined towards musicals than plays, but in recent years I’ve seen a number of excellent plays. The standout play, I have seen this decade, was Red Velvet, starring Adrian Lester. The Lehman Trilogy is equally good, possibly having the edge.

The Lehman Trilogy – a haunted office

The first act of The Lehman Trilogy starts in the modern day offices of Lehman’s, as the radio announces the failure of the bank. What proceeds is an excellently acted story by a trio of actors, their characters seemingly haunting the modern setting of the deserted bank. The set itself is excellent, rotating and cleverly used by the cast. Despite being sat in the Grand Circle of the Picadilly Theatre, we could clearly see what was going on.

The three actors, Simon Russell Beale, Adam Godley and Ben Miles bring alive the history of the Lehman family from their arrival in the USA. The story flows incredibly well, each actor swapping roles, even genders, to cleverly bring the story to life. A combination of excellent timing and perfect delivery of the funnier lines means that you are completely sucked into the story.

At three and a half hours, including two short intervals, I expected the story to drag. If anything, by the final act, the story is getting a little too light, rushing to the conclusion. However, it still works brilliantly. That the tiny cast can maintain the pace and variety, is a testament to their ability as actors.

The history of Lehman Brothers

From a historical point of view, the story was easy to plot against the rise of King Cotton; the US Civil War; the railroad boom; Great War; Great Depression; World War; Cold War through to the final collapse of the bank. A handy timeline was included in the programme, allowing you to refresh your mind, although the clever story-telling led the audience through each period.

It was interesting listening to a group of people behind me fitting these pieces together in the second interval, helping them to recognise how the inter-war economy failed – it’s not GCSE History, but it plays true to the narrative students would know. If anything, the play neatly shows the rise of capitalism in the USA and how this specific company fell foul of modern financing and the lack of effective regulation. To be fair, the play does gloss lightly over the more recent parts of the story. It is still very successful at getting across the cut-throat ethos of modern trading. Yet, it would be much harder to engagingly show the audience how Lehman’s manipulated the figures to hide their fatal weaknesses.

With Sam Mendes directing, as well as an excellent cast, superb writing and a cleverly linked musical accompaniment on the piano, this is a play that is worth your time and money.

The signs of getting old

19 August 2018 by C. M. Harald

The signs of getting old

Well, it’s finally happening, one of the critical signs of getting old. I can ignore all the grey hair. The expanding waistline is apparently too much food and not enough exercise. The creaking joints can even be explained away by being overweight, or too much standing on my feet at work. However, what couldn’t be ignored was my left eye struggling to focus on books when they’re close to my face.

Of course, the Kindle has managed to hide this for a while. Most of my leisure reading is on the Kindle or in magazines. My reading for work is usually relatively large print or sizeable handwriting. With the Kindle, just making the text a little bigger and the problem goes away. However, the tiny print in Harry Turtledove’s ‘Bomb’s Away’ really made it clear that I needed to get an eye test done.

Off for the inevitable eye test

To be fair, I’d been considering an eye test this summer holiday. I’ve been aware that getting old, specifically anyone over 40, can lead to presbyopia. It’s been a while since I had an eye test and I’ve been putting it off for a while. I’ve always been proud of my 20/20 vision, happy to tease the nearsighted by standing on the beach and spotting the ships travelling the English Channel on, and slightly beyond, the horizon. So I steeled myself for a visit to Specsavers, ready for evidence (more) that I’m getting old.

Fortunately, the consultant was much subtle than ‘you’re old now’. I pretty much said, going in, that I’d be needing reading glasses and that’s exactly what was prescribed. Nothing too strong, but enough to make the difference. However, this led to the new dilemma of working out what frames to order. Nearly an hour later, I’d settled on a couple of pairs having tried everything from bright ‘extraverted’ glasses to ones that made me look like I was in the Stazi in a dodgy 1970s spy movie.

Making a difference

A week later and I’d picked up the new glasses. What a difference. My eyes are now getting quicker at combining the two images – one eye is weaker than the other, but both have got old. The constant fingerprints are getting tedious though.

So, yes, I’m getting old. It’s official. I’m at the age when our eyes begin to fail us. I’m not actually writing this with glasses on right now as I’m touch typing while watching the Channel 4 news. I’ll be wearing them when I proof-read this blog. Perhaps I’ll spot, and correct, a few more mistakes than I’d usually pick up? I won’t be checking them until after I’ve planned some vegetables in my garden while wearing my comfy slippers, smoking an old pipe. Ah, I feel the need for a mug of Horlicks and an early night.

Horlicks to that! It’s just middle age. Getting old doesn’t happen until your 80’s these days.

Dunkirk – A review

15 February 2018 by C. M. Harald

Perhaps this is an overdue post in more than one sense. Dunkirk come out in the cinema in July 2017 and I nearly went to see it on several occasions during the summer holiday. I had certainly been anticipating this movie. With the ‘endless’ school holiday stretching before me, I should have managed to see it. However, as is usual, the holiday passed quickly, helped by a mountain of work that I had to complete before returning to school.

It was much the same situation with the DVD release just before Christmas. I bought a copy, thinking the Christmas holiday is ahead, I will watch it then. A week of illness and a week of essential school admin work put pay to that idea. Facing an impending mountain of marking upon returning to work, I found an evening in January. I knew that this last evening was essentially going to be the calm before the storm. What better way could I spend this final evening of rest, than by watching a DVD that I hoped would not just entertain, but also be useful in the classroom.

Much has been written about aspects of the historical accuracy of this movie. The hundreds of Indian soldiers, who were evacuated from Dunkirk, were not present in the movie. This was probably more excusable than the media furore suggested. The number of Indian soldiers evacuated at Dunkirk was a fraction of the total troops who escaped the trap. Dunkirk was the wrong movie to show the war-time contribution of India. This is a contribution that needs addressing in British story-telling.

The absences that really stuck out, were perhaps made more obvious by the media debate over the missing Indian presence. Totally absent were the Germans, other than a few token faces at the end of the movie and a series of aircraft. The French were also grossly underrepresented, although at least there was an acknowledgement of the colonial composition of some of their forces. I would have preferred for the actors, playing the French, to have been representing the brave French holding the line. Instead they were among the group trying to escape on the mole. Where were the French who escaped through Dunkirk? W here were the French who held off the Germans until the evacuation was complete? Dunkirk as a British story, is a half story.

One of the greatest absences were those of the British themselves. Where were they? Allegedly there were thousands of extras, yet they were used in few scenes. The beach was naked, hardly a soul to be seen. Surely CGI could have filled the beach with the thousands of souls that were evacuated each day? At times it looked as if there were a handful of actors and a very empty beach. On 30th May, nearly 30,000 soldiers were evacuated via the beach. The next day 45,000 were picked up from the harbour.

The film looked extremely flaky in this respect, in the best traditions of the 1950s and 1960s movies that would dress up Sherman tanks as Soviet T34s or Me-108s as Me-109s. Many movies seem to use the wrong equipment, and Dunkirk almost avoids drawing this accusation. There was little dressing up or dubious substitutions. A disappointing use of CGI was the Stuka dive-bombers, understandable as there are no flying examples today. This was in stark contrast to the He-111 and Me109s. The 109s were the later Spanish version, which had also been used to excellent effect simulating the original German aircraft in the movie ‘The Battle of Britain’. The He-111 was an excellent radio-controlled model. Two of the Spitfires were also marks that were in use in 1940, and the black and white belly paint scheme was also accurately shown, something missed in many dramas. It was great to see these small details as their absence can pull the nerdier among us out of a story – something that the excellent plot in SS-GB managed to compensate for after an early scene in the movie used completely the wrong model of Spitfire. Yes, I did moan about SS-GB at the time, a legacy of far too many Airfix models as a child.

Far more jarring, in terms of substitute equipment, was the use of a real destroyer. For the average movie-goer, these things simply do not matter, and as the film had mostly got this sort of thing right, it would probably escape notice. Yet, for someone who spent far too long looking at the silhouettes of Second World War warships as a teenager, something was not quite right. The gun turrets on the destroyer did not look appropriate to the period, being more like post-war turrets. A quick check on the internet showed that the film had used a post-war French destroyer, the Maille-Brez. With their usual lack of accuracy, the Daily Mail even claimed this was a genuine 1930’s British destroyer. It was a shame HMS Cavalier was not used as it is much closer to the designs used in 1940, being commissioned in 1944. There are two other British World War II destroyers still afloat, albeit one is in Canada and the other in Egypt, perhaps these could have been CGI-ed in, rather than have the Maille-Brez physically present?

The greatest absence of all was a plot. With the amazing backdrop of Dunkirk, this should not have been a criticism, yet the movie seems to go out of it’s way to avoid telling anything more complicated than a series of simple two or three part sub-plots. I cannot overlook the lack of story considering the wealth of wartime accounts that exist. Instead the movie draws out the few plodding plots, slowly overlapping them, the timelines slowly merging. Where are the accounts of the fierce defence of the shrinking perimeter? What about the many stories of different men being evacuated? How about the many stories of the French and British warships struggling under attack? Where are the many Little Ships? Instead of the many amazing stories from the battle, we got a plodding narrative that lacks pace and emotional engagement.

Overall, the movie was a great disappointment. Not only did the plot greatly disappoint me, it is of little use to me in the classroom. Dunkirk lacks the set-pieces of movies such as Saving Private Ryan. This means that the pace will not draw the attention of the modern teenager with their limited attention span in the classroom. The movie does little to address the idea of a victory snatched from defeat. This is a staple of Year 9 interpretive work. Lovely shooting of the aerial battle as least makes the movie useful for school investigations into advances in air combat. Dunkirk could also lead to a classroom debate on the contribution of non-white Empire forces, and how they are shown in movies.

Midsummer in Auschwitz

2 July 2017 by C. M. Harald

The title of this blog-post, ‘Midsummer in Auschwitz’, certainly sounds like the title of an interesting story. Yet it would be a story that I do not think I could write, or do any justice to if I did.

A week and a half ago, on Wednesday, as our plane chased the midsummer sunset over Poland and Germany, one of the trip organisers spoke to us over the aircraft tannoy. Until that point I had not realised it was midsummer’s day and I have certainly borrowed the title from what he said to us. I had, however, been keenly aware that the 28^oC that we had experienced during our tour was significantly cooler than the 36^oC heat of a humid London. It had also been very clear to me that my generic understanding of Auschwitz was incorrect. The cold, sub-zero winter temperatures that are the norm in that part of Poland, are only a feature of the winter months. Southern Poland basks in the sun just like anywhere else.

Lessons from Auschwitz

Having been keenly aware of the Holocaust since a very young age, initially through my father’s collection of ‘Purnell’s History of the Second World War‘, Auschwitz has always been a place I have been ambivalent about visiting. I have always been nervous about visiting a scene of one of the many massacres that took place across Europe, especially one that is so high in the public consciousness. Even while a student, I kept at a discrete distance from Holocaust Studies, aware of the great historians who were arguing about the interpretation of sources and the events while fighting off a rising tide of denial. Yet, I have always wanted to see these places for myself, to make them as real as one can after so many decades.

The opportunity to visit Auschwitz came up when I recently changed schools. Over the years I have worked with the Lessons From Auschwitz project to send pupils and teachers to witness the museum on the site of the former death and concentration camp. This year I finally got the opportunity to go. After a weekend development seminar, at which a Holocaust survivor spoke, I was ready to go, although wary of how the trip may affect me.

Arriving in Poland

After an extremely early start, the flight descended over Poland, the first time I had seen the country. Already a glorious day, everything glistened in the sunshine, the fields green and fertile. One of the first things to strike me, as we made our approach to the airfield, were the small strips of farmland dominating the landscape, totally unlike the post-enclosure fields of agricultural Britain.

The first stop on the tour was to the cross-roads town of Oświęcim, a reasonable coach journey from the airport. Having returned to it’s original name, this town deserves to be known for much more than the crimes committed under it’s Germanic name. With many old buildings and a glorious town square, the centre of the town is picturesque. As a major meeting point on old trade routes and the railways, it has a rich history as a meeting place. Prior to the events of the Second World War, it was also relatively well integrated, and people of all faiths and nationalities lived alongside each other. Of course, the events that took place on the outskirts of the town, underlined by the destruction of the synagogue, led to the end of that integration. Also much overlooked by those outside of Poland is the extreme suffering of the Poles during the war.

Auschwitz I

The visit to Oświęcim was truly a whistle-stop one. Before long we were back on the coaches for the short trip to Auschwitz I, the old army barracks. As it came into sight, I was surprised by how close it was to the town, barracks building that I had seen in countless documentaries were clearly visible from the road. Hotels and commercial buildings around the entrance to the camp built up to support the vast numbers of people who make a pilgrimage to the museum every year. Make no mistake, this complex is now a museum, a place to learn and reflect, no longer a place of torment and death.

During our guided tour, the exhibits and the expert knowledge of the guide proved thought-provoking. On more than one occasion I could feel the hairs on my arm stand on end. This was no tour of mass slaughter, but rather a reflection on the personal experience. Everywhere there was evidence of individuals, identified by name, date of birth and ultimate fate. The controversial exhibit of human hair, was one such moment when I dwelt upon the end of a specific individual.

The firing squad wall in Auschwitz I. More than 5,500 prisoners were executed here.

In various places, I could see the locations of the different survivor accounts I was familiar with. The tour of the barracks rooms was highly organised. For various reasons it covers the whole history of the camps at Auschwitz, not just the story of the events that took place in those rooms or even Auschwitz I. It is clearly a museum within the maintained shell of the old Polish barracks, the barracks that was converted into the first part of vast Auschwitz-Birkenau complex. The museum faces the challenge of telling the story to multiple nationalities, of varying ages, and significantly varying interest. Imagine living in a country where Holocaust Studies is a significant and compulsory part of the school curriculum and that you are required to visit the camp as part of your education. You may end up more liberal in your lifetime views, but not every teenager can cope with being told to go on school trips and visit places relating to subjects that you have already been heavily-exposed too. Having said that, all the teenagers I saw were respectful. The museum also has the challenge of how to maintain the original fabric of the site while using replicas in an appropriate and sensitive fashion. The famous sign above the gated entrance to this camp is one such example, a replica now standing following the theft and recovery of the original. Another place where this dilemma was noticeable was the gallows where the former camp commander Rudolf Hoess was executed in 1947.

The bareness of the improvised gas chamber and crematorium, stood in stark contrast to the various exhibits in the barracks building. This is a building that is familiar to anyone who has watched Laurence Rees’ ‘Auschwitz – The Nazis and the Final Solution’ and ‘The Nazis – A Warning from History’, both made by the BBC. It is also the only intact gas chamber at the Auschwitz-Birkenau site, the others destroyed either by a prisoner uprising or the retreating Nazis. The silence in the building was almost total, with our guide talking to us over the radio headphones. I doubt I was capable of any rational conversation at this time.

Birkenau

The remainder of the day was spent at the Birkenau camp. With a mixture of restored and replica buildings, wrecked buildings and the destroyed gas chambers, this was a different experience. Auschwitz I was based around the experience of the individual, Birkenau was based around sheer scale even though there were careful exhibits to remind us about the individual scale.

The camp was vast. From the famous rail entrance to the camp, the wire fences stretched into the distance, the back of the camp also out of view in the distant tree-line. Near the entrance are a series of brick prisoner barracks in various stages of preservation. There were also several wooden barracks in various stages of reconstructions, the wood falling prey to the high water-table over the years and having to be replaced. Even the telegraph poles had been removed from contact with the damp ground, now anchored to concrete posts. The majority of the concentration camp was in ruins, pairs of chimneys marking the locations of the many barracks the prisoners were held in. With so many buildings in skeletal form, it is easier to see the vast scale of the camp. While the decision to maintain, and recreate, a small number of buildings was more than adequate to communicate the horror of the place. Among the recreated buildings was a toilet block, while the sleeping quarters next door, clearly illustrated the appalling conditions the inmates were forced to live in. It was clear that the intention was for the prisoners to die over time.

Facing the entrance to Auschwitz-Birkenau from inside the camp. Visible to the left, before the final rail siding, is the sorting ramp. This was where newly arrived prisoners were selected for immediate extermination.

The rail sidings through the centre of the camp were capable of taking long trains before sorting individuals for instant gassing. Approximately 5,000 people could be delivered by each train. There are an immense number of accounts that recall what happened here. To be stood in a location, that is the centre of such historical documentation, leads to many mixed emotions. As an Englishman, who has visited many of the historically important parts of Britain, this visit was on a completely different level to visits I have made to historical sites before. While there have been great crimes in the history of Britain, there is no one site that can compare to this. Of the many sites of extermination in Eastern Europe, few are remembered on the scale of Auschwitz.

Entrance to one of the gas chamber changing rooms. The crematorium can be seen at the top of the photo. Brick prison barracks are in the background. This part of the complex was wrecked by the retreating Nazis.

The wrecked gas chambers and crematorium were vast, preserved in their destroyed state, ponds besides them that had been used to store ashes. One building had been destroyed by the retreating Nazis, the other by revolting Sonderkommandos. As you stand by these buildings, the mathematics of the camp cannot be ignored. Hundreds of thousands of individuals were ‘processed’ through these buildings. The photographic evidence from the time is sparse. While the Nazis were thorough in their photographic documentation of the camp, only photographs taken covertly by the Sonderkommandos, show the buildings in use. However, the eyewitness testimony and the human remains, are the strongest evidence.

As I walked around Birkenau, I struggled to take in the scale, too vast in numbers of deaths. As a museum, the former concentration and death camp is clean, grassed, empty, almost desolate despite the frequent evidence of wildlife. Yet places were recognisable from the photos that exist, but are today transformed by peace.

Candles lit during the remembrance service at the end of the trip.

Flying home

The rest of the trip passed in a blur of tiredness. As we flew into the sunset, I began to reflect. I have continued to reflect in the days since the trip. Intolerance and prejudice must be challenged quickly and effectively. Auschwitz is a warning of what can occur when people do not stand up for each other, an extreme warning of what can happen in an enlightened modern society. However, it should be remembered that intolerance and prejudice comes from humans-beings. The challenge is to stand firmly against their views, while remembering that they too are human.

While the scale and nature of persecution against the Jews, by the Nazis and their supporters, was unprecedented in human history, other groups suffered immensely. There is a challenge today to remember the many other victims of the Nazi persecutions, without disregarding the suffering of the Jews. Among these were Germans of all religions, sexualities and political viewpoints; Poles; Russians; Ukrainians; Romani; and the disabled.

There is also the challenge of remembering that Auschwitz was the exception, not the rule. Millions were murdered by Einsatzgruppen firing squads; camps such as Treblinka were brutally effective in both scale and lack of survivors. Locally initiated pogroms and the ghetto system also led to vast amounts of suffering and deaths. Much of Nazi-occupied Europe was subject to the persecutions and genocides; and while many people participated, many also resisted.

Perhaps the most challenging reflection came from one person on the trip, who was concerned by the lack of a vigorous challenge to anti-Semitism, by one of the main British political parties. That political party has been accused, by some of being institutionally anti-Semitic. In the last week, some media sources have even suggested that this party is experiencing a cult of personality. Contrasted to this is a policy of one of the other major political parties in Britain that has led to thousands of disabled people dying after they have been declared as ‘fit to work‘ and had their benefits cut. Not that such a policy directly caused their deaths, but the stress of the review process will not have helped their health. Nor is it fair to target someone for austerity measures who clearly has a terminal condition. Yet, neither situation is anywhere near the scale of what happened in the 1930s and 1940s, but there is prejudice and discrimination going on. In Britain today, there is also the spectre of Islamophobia and the question of how to deal with Brexit, while not tolerating racism.

How does one person fix these things? They do not. They make a stand for what is right and encourage those around them to do so to. Whatever the ‘-ism’ or ‘-phobia’, it must be challenged and not allowed to flourish, while remembering that the people who hold these ideas are human.

A mad two months

14 November 2016 by C. M. Harald

There has been little writing completed over the last two months and several deadlines have slipped by. However, I’ve been rather busy in a new job and moving home to be closer to work.

The highlight of recent weeks was a visit to the Battle of Hastings re-enactment at Battle Abbey. This year was the 950th anniversary of the battle. Despite bad weather, we set out for Hastings on the Saturday, staying in a holiday home overnight. It was only as the heavens opened that I was told that the holiday home site had flooded in bad weather last year. To my amazement, I did’t float away during the night and upon arriving at Battle Abbey, I was impressed with how prepared English Heritage were for the wet weather.
Hastings

Armed with my new English Heritage membership, we slowly looked around the stalls. Many were selling equipment for re-enactors, but as a teacher, there were several things I was tempted to buy. To be honest, I don’t think I’d have been been able to get the battle axe under my boss’ nose. I really don’t think swinging the thing around a classroom would really be an acceptable way to manage behaviour, or demonstrate the effectiveness of the weapon.

The re-enactors themselves were the key draw. Fascinating as the site is, it is only one a year that a thousand re-enactors are present to entertain. A series of demonstrations impressed the audience. Notable were the fifty mounted horsemen who thundered around the arena. An impressively narrated display of birds of prey was undertaken in the context of the Saxon and Norman eras. However, the most impressive demonstration was by the foot-soldier re-enactors. These men and women not only wore period style clothing, but also extensive protective gear. In a series of competitively fought demonstrations, these re-enactors demonstrated the use of their weapons in a ‘Highlander’ style knock-out tournament. Not only did these enthusiasts show great skill in fighting, they also took great pride in their acting skills when ‘injured’ or ‘killed’.

Re-enactors form a shield wall at Hastings 2016

Ultimately, the main event of the day was the re-enactment of the battle. Due to the presence of a large, and ruined, abbey atop the hill, the re-enactment took place on the slope below Senlac Ridge. For the first time I saw a shield wall with more than a couple of hundred re-enactors taking place. The view was fearsome. The spectacle of the Saxon axemen whirling their weapons around their bodies was also something I had never seen before. With over fifty horsemen, the scale of this re-enactment was vast, even though it was much smaller than the original battle. Likewise, the timescale was condensed to an hour, rather than the day the original battle took to fight. And to avoid controversy, the traditional schoolboy explanation of the death of Harold Godwinson was offered.

Re-enactors fire arrows at Hastings 2016

Hastings 2016 – a volley of Norman arrows
Dover Castle

To make further use of my shiny new English Heritage membership, I also visited Dover Castle. Having not been for many years, despite driving past the site almost every week, I was excited to look around again. They must have known I was coming as they had plenty of Christmas food gifts out for sampling and purchase. I came away with toffee apple cider and fiery mustard.

Entrance to the Keep at Dover Castle

As always, the presentation of Dover Castle is immaculate. From the Roman lighthouse to the Norman keep, the displays are detailed. The work in the keep brings to life the old stone walls and helps you to visualise the appearance of an occupied castle. One treat was finding the restored First World War anti-aircraft gun that is fired every day. The education officer had told me about the planned acquisition, over a cream tea, about three years ago, but I’d not been to see it yet.

Due to my legs nearly falling off with all the exercise, we put off a visit to the Second World War hospital and the Dunkirk Experience. I’ll have to go back as I’ve never been around them, and yes I’m also tempted by the special tours of Dumpy.