Hitler: Synopsis Adolf Hitler has been variously described as a ‘madman’; a ‘lunatic’; a ‘monster’; a ‘homicidal maniac’ etcetera, but this in no way explains the essence of the man who was responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of people. His appearance was fairly unremarkable. But when he...
Winston Churchill: Portrait of an Unquiet Mind
Winston Churchill: Synopsis On top of the piano in her living room, my great-grandmother kept a treasured, handwritten letter from Winston Churchill in a sliver frame. During the Second World War she had written to Britain’s wartime leader to congratulate him on his handling of the war. This was his...
Charles Darwin: Destroyer of Myths
Charles Darwin: Synopsis When Charles Darwin sailed to South America, and in particular the Galapagos Islands of the west coast of Chile, as a naturalist aboard the good ship HMS Beagle in the year 1831, his observations of the flora and fauna would lead him to formulate his Theory of...
Beatrix Potter: Her Inner World
Beatrix Potter: Synopsis Even from a very young age when she lived in London, Beatrix Potter was interested in animals. In fact, she kept a collection of them in her bedroom! In her books, such as ‘The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin’, which she illustrated herself, she treated the little animals...
T.E. Lawrence: Tormented Hero
T.E. Lawrence: Synopsis Why did ‘Lawrence of Arabia’, at the height of his fame, decide to become a virtual recluse? Was it because of some trauma that he had sustained during the First World War? The story of T.E. Lawrence's inner struggle against the demons that tormented him, together with...
Thomas Hardy at Max Gate: The Latter Years
Thomas Hardy at Max Gate: Synopsis ‘Max Gate’ is a large house on the outskirts Dorchester which Dorset poet and novelist Thomas Hardy designed himself, and being an intensely private person, he surrounded it with a thick screen of trees. In this house, Hardy continued to write his novels including...
Thomas Hardy: Bockhampton and Beyond
Thomas Hardy: Synopsis Devotees of Thomas Hardy, not only in his native county of Dorset but worldwide, are fortunate in that the cottage in which he was born and grew up still exists, and is lovingly maintained by the National Trust.‘Hardy’s Cottage’ is set in an idyllic landscape of forest...
Making Sense of Marilyn
Making Sense of Synopsis The face of Marilyn Monroe was, in her lifetime, and remains today, arguably the most recognisable on the planet. But what I remember most about her from her films and from film clips is her charm, and that wonderful smile that lit up the scene wherever...