That is very sad - such a good historian. Thanks for letting us know.

Hi Sam, glad you’ve been enjoying it and hope that Yale will sort it out for you.

😂

Yes, I understand the staff just opened the door and gently ushered it out and it climbed a nearby tree.

Thanks - I’ve read Robin’s (he was my tutor at Uni of Adelaide eons ago), but will look out the Peden and anticipate David French’s volume … and yours too

Is there a good single volume book on British grand strategy in the Second World War? The weight of the official history is more than a little daunting …

Yes, references to cats as pets seem very rare, though I did find one to an eccentric bachelor - a Scottish lawyer - who kept lots, that I included in Love and Marriage

I wish that there was more about Wellington and his dogs, but it wasn’t a subject that got recorded much at the time

Memoirs of George Elers (New York, 1903) p 274

In 1836 George Elers, who had known Wellington in India forty years before, tried to palm off an unwanted St Bernard dog onto the Duke. (Elers had inherited the dog from a friend and had already tried unsuccessfully to give it to a lady who had jilted the friend). Wellington’s reply was concise.

Thanks Rob, very encouraging to see it out in the wild especially here in the remote antipodes!