Zebulon Swingewood (imprisoned debtor in 1769) has been living rent free in my head for almost the last decade

Ah the Victorian period, when it was more important to save a few pennies on a second sheet of paper than for the recipient of your letter to be able to read what you’d written

Begging 19th Century writers to just be normal for five minutes was apparently a fools errand.

I'm several pages in and none the wiser at what should be a mild complaint about an aspect of Bradford society c.1820: 'Tweedle, Tweedle, Tweedle, Some Catgut to my Feedle' (??)

I maintain that early modern historians remain the most whimsical historians

'Miss Ashworth ... sang the air "Pious Orgies" tastefully and correctly', sometimes its ok to acknowledge the meaning of a word has changed without trying to work out what it used to mean using a work laptop. (Todmorden and Hebden Bridge Weekly Advertiser 8th March 1862)

Loved getting to chat debt imprisonment with Layton Williams, one of the nicest human beings I've ever met, on Who Do You Think You Are? last night even if I only had bad news for him

www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/epis...

Went to Rome. Got threatened by a mirror. 10/10

Feeling a lot of affinity with this church advert(?) outside the office every time I look at the news

"A man's ruling passion is to eat' - the Leeds Times in 1841 was really speaking my language

Trying to decide if I should go to Wakefield archives solely to find out what the hell is in this box.

Was wondering if the Spanish Flu stopped British couples from ... "reconnecting" after the First World War.

No. No it did not.

(data estimated from age given in years and months in the 1921 Census minus nine months)

Aren't we all Mr Matthew Moncrieff Pattison

Really hope Ridley Scott shows the same deliberate disdain for historians in the Beatles film as he did in Napoleon. Can’t wait to see Ringo leading a cavalry charge at the Battle of Borodino.

Cannot understand why this interviewer in the 1970s felt it wasn't necessary to ask more questions about this Edwardian cat. TELL ME EVERYTHING ABOUT HIM

15 years on twitter, years of hard research driven work, nothing compares to finding a tortoise in the 1921 census

One of the joys of working more on the early 20th Century is using my treasure trove of family photos in presentations. This one of my great grandfather William's WW1 unit is rather spoilt by his decision to stand behind the flag, making him only recognisable by his distinctive ears

First World War had a lot of long term impacts but it also created a crisis in care. Not all those killed were young men, many left behind widows and children. Census data suggests kids 1-9 in 1921 were more likely to have lost a father than at any other census

Thought I'd liven up my project on orphanhood with some oral history aspects but was not ready for this absolutely devastating old lady recalling her her sister's funeral