Sacred relics and broken oaths with three claimants to English throne

It took 600 years to really establish the Saxons as lords and masters of the land now called England. They had driven the original inhabitants into the West and then pushed back the various Nordic invaders into small enclaves. Edward the Confessor had ruled for a good time but in 1066 he popped his clogsContinue reading “Sacred relics and broken oaths with three claimants to English throne”

New town residents were servants of two masters

In the early 1970s Basildon New Town (officially Basildon but as it was just over 20 years old people still added the New Town tag) control was in the hands of two organisations – Basildon Development Corporation and Basildon Urban District Council. By the time I arrived in 1972 the council was the civil administratorContinue reading “New town residents were servants of two masters”

Tears of sorrow for a Welshman in exile

My time as a journalist in Basildon was not all politics and crime, although I did spend a lot of time in the council chamber and the magistrates’ courts. The Arts Centre, just off the town square, was a cultural centre for the district and, as well as hosting concerts and professional entertainment, it providedContinue reading “Tears of sorrow for a Welshman in exile”

Though The Last Glimpse Of Erin With Sorrow I See

by Thomas Moore (1779-1852) Though the last glimpse of Erin with sorrow I see, Yet wherever thou art shall seem Erin to me; In exile thy bosom shall still be my home, And thine eyes make my climate wherever we roam. To the gloom of some desert or cold rocky shore, Where the eye ofContinue reading “Though The Last Glimpse Of Erin With Sorrow I See”