Meg christens herself
When my daughter Meg was nineteen months old, I had her christened in our family’s parish church in England. Here’s …
Category Archives: Family history
Who will farm the farms?
Two weeks ago I walked along the Dimple Lane that extends from my aunt’s house near the Crich marketplace to …
The flotilla of “little boats,” Dunkirk, 1940
The evacuation of Dunkirk in which 338,000 British troops were rescued from the Nazi onslaught in June 1940 by the “little …
My great-grandfather John Bent Wallis’s painting, in 1901 and now
Today I’m going in search of the spot where, on a summer day in 1901, my great-grandfather, later the nature …
My great-grandfather John Bent Wallis, writer and painter
My great-grandfather, John Bent Wallis, was a self-taught painter and journalist. He painted the picture above in 1901 showing the …
On this very spot near King’s College Chapel, my dad and I, 40 years apart . . .
My sister, me, my mother, and my father in a photo taken by our family friend and Cambridge don, Mike …
My grandfather’s pleached hedge
Today I went in search of a hedge that my grandfather, Henry Victor Smith, pleached as a young man over …
The Year of Living Englishly 