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Reposted by Simon Jones

Louvain Rees ⚰️ @hellohistoria.bsky.social · 12h

#OTD 1913 • An explosion at the Universal Colliery, Senghenydd, killed 439 miners and one rescuer ⛏️

www.library.wales/discover-lea...

#Wales #History

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Simon Jones @simonjones.bsky.social · 12h

This thread helps explain it. He wasn't tried for a capital offence and so couldn't have been sentenced to death. bsky.app/profile/gene...

Andrew @generalising.bsky.social · 1d

His records survive (under another number), and it seems like he was found guilty at court-martial and sentenced to 18 months imprisonment. In the end I think he served about six months of that sentence before transferring.

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Simon Jones @simonjones.bsky.social · 17h

Ian Fleming proposed tax relief for the bringing of pleasure through the creative arts. He called it the Quantum of Solace Clause.

I have a basic alteration to propose in our tax laws which I will call, so that it looks properly portentous on the statute books, the Quantum of Solace Clause. Briefly, this will allow tax relief to those who, as judged by an independent tribunal, have given the maximum amount of pleasure to their fellow citizens. Most beneficiaries will, of course, come from the creative arts acting, writing, painting, music, etc. - but they will also come from sport, politics and medicine. Such a clause would, I believe, have the blessing of the general public, it would greatly encourage the arts, and it would serve to keep creative ability within our shores (copy to the Inland Revenue for action!).
(from Thrilling Cities, 1963)

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Simon Jones @simonjones.bsky.social · 23h

This is a marvellous website on the Women's Land Army created by @cherishwatton.bsky.social www.womenslandarmy.co.uk

Homepage - Women's Land Army

The Women’s Land Army was first set up in January 1917 and re-formed in June 1939. It employed over 200,000 women during the First and Second World Wars.

www.womenslandarmy.co.uk

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Simon Jones @simonjones.bsky.social · 1d

I've been reading in the papers about Land Girls during the First World War enjoying the practicality of their uniforms in the British weather (Beachcomber in the Daily Express agreed with them), but there were fears that they would want to wear such clothes all the time.

Newspaper cartoon showing four women on pavement in various forms of trousered uniform or outfit. Caption reads: ‘Many war workers have discarded skirts when on duty: now they want to discard them in their hours of ease. Here are some suggested trouser costumes for the unfrocked brigade.’ (Weekly Despatch, 3/9/1916, p. 2.)

Newscutting: The only really happy people I have seen are the women in uniform. For the first time in their lives they have been able to face rain without the horror of bedraggled skirts and soppy furbelows. The new experience has obviously been thrilling. I saw eleven land girls in Regent-street. They were booted, breeched, cloaked, and merrily in-different to the rain. Their skirted sisters, huddling in shop doors waiting for the taxi that would not come, gazed at them with undisguised envy. (Daily Express, Beachcomber, 2/8/1917, p. 2.)

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Simon Jones @simonjones.bsky.social · 1d

Here's what actually happened:
bsky.app/profile/gene...

Andrew @generalising.bsky.social · 1d

I got very curious about this. You can trace Shearer's unit (21 CCS) and you can see what looks like the echo of his little blaze of fame: in Sept 1916 you get visits from various grandees including ... the editor of the BMJ, who presumably came to see for himself.

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Simon Jones @simonjones.bsky.social · 1d

Thank you, that's fascinating and clears up the 'death sentence' issue.

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Simon Jones @simonjones.bsky.social · 1d

I'm saying that no one called Shearer was sentenced to death, and so it could not have been commuted. The lists in the National Archives include those sentenced to death whose sentences were commuted.

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Simon Jones @simonjones.bsky.social · 1d

I'm sorry to say there is no one named Shearer listed as sentenced to death in the British Army during the First World War. The list I have was published in 1998 and I'm not sure what was due to be released in 2017. The files on soldiers whose death sentences were commuted were not preserved.

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Reposted by Simon Jones

Archives and Records Association UK and Ireland @araukie.bsky.social · 19d

Why aren’t Police Records in England & Wales covered by the Public Records Act? We've been campaigning on this since 2012 - blog for more info:
www.campaignforrecords.org/blog/why-arent-police-records-covered-by-the-public-records-act
#publicaccountability
of interest @andyburnham.bsky.social ?

Photo of a paper airplane on fire with text that reads "I am under no obligation to disclose anything and the papers belong to me. If I wanted to I could take them into the yard and have a bonfire with them" South Yorkshire Chief Constable Med Hughes.

Credit for photo of on fire airplane is Aron Yigin via Unsplash

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Reposted by Simon Jones

Marianne O'Doherty @marianneodoherty.bsky.social · 2d

There is a simple question that all interviewers should ask when people say this: do you think the statue of Jimmy Savile in Glasgow should have remained in place after details of his crimes were released? If they say 'yes' then at least they have a consistent position. But of course they won't.

historianmemory.bsky.social @historianmemory.bsky.social · 2d

'I don’t think it’s ever a good idea to deny history. I think it’s always really important to face your own history honestly ...'

Toppling statues is an act of protest. It's about contesting a collective memory. NEVER about denying history.
observer.co.uk/culture/inte...

Nicholas Cullinan: ‘I don’t think it’s ever a good idea t...

The British Museum director on toppling statues, the Parthenon marbles and hosting London’s new star-studded answer to the Met Gala

observer.co.uk

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Simon Jones @simonjones.bsky.social · 2d

Frauds👎
Riot Women👍👍

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Reposted by Simon Jones

Norfolk Record Office @norfolkro.bsky.social · 2d

On this day nurse #EdithCavell and #PhilipeBaucq were shot at dawn for helping allied soldiers to escape Belgium during the First World War. This is a letter from one of those soldiers.

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Simon Jones @simonjones.bsky.social · 2d

That's basically how I have to write, due to a lack of short-term memory, and the slow, painful process of making thoughts into coherent sentences.

Simon Jones @simonjones.bsky.social · 2d

He went on his way.

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Reposted by Simon Jones

Jenny Grant @silenceinpolish.bsky.social · 2d

Modellers - the call you have been waiting all your lives for...!

Does anyone have any models of #WW2 aircraft they could drop by a school in Newbury tomorrow?

A group of students wants to film a scene - presumably with them going "Pew! Pew! Nerrrrr!"

Please share 🙏

three planes are flying in a row in a cloudy sky

ALT: three planes are flying in a row in a cloudy sky

media.tenor.com

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Simon Jones @simonjones.bsky.social · 2d

At the local watering hole.

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Simon Jones @simonjones.bsky.social · 2d

It's always reassuring to discover that extremely successful writers are as desperately plodding and uncertain as you are.
www.theguardian.com/books/2025/o...

Page of typescript which has been very heavily amended in manuscript.

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Reposted by Simon Jones

Helen Day @lbflyawayhome.bsky.social · 3d

“Farm workers follow where the spinner has passed and collect the potatoes in shallow baskets.
Picking up potatoes is back-aching work”
Writer: EL Grant Watson
Artist: CF Tunnicliffe

On a misty day in autumn, a group of mainly women follow a tractor to gather potatoes. The figures are hunched over and you can almost feel the back pain.

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Simon Jones @simonjones.bsky.social · 4d

The motivation means peace is unlikely.

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Simon Jones @simonjones.bsky.social · 4d

Thank you for your service to flapjack understanding.

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Simon Jones @simonjones.bsky.social · 7d

Another of Jean Larrivé's models at the French Army Medical Museum at Val-de-Grâce, Paris. This one shows bearers carrying a wounded man into an underground trench dressing station.

Model of stretcher bearers in a trench wearing greatcoats and steel helmets carrying a prostrate man down steps into a dugout.

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Simon Jones @simonjones.bsky.social · 7d

The swans have flown. All six cygnets made it.

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Simon Jones @simonjones.bsky.social · 8d

Windsor this evening.

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Simon Jones @simonjones.bsky.social · 9d

Shocking plot twist.

During the writing, Gallagher disclosed another decades-old secret to his partner: when he speedily completed the crossword in her copy of the Guardian he had already done it earlier, in his own copy

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