My next speaking event is for the Gwent Family History Society on Wednesday 25 May 2016 at 7.00 pm in the Civic Centre Newport. The title of the talk is ‘The Stories in the Stones’ and I shall be examining four local graves – one in Monmouth, one in Whitebrook and two in Newport. The…
Author: gbadmin
Blackpill Local History Society 17 May 2016
My next talk is scheduled for Tuesday 17 May in the Vivian Hall at Blackpill. The title is ‘Swansea in the 1950s’ and I will be looking in detail at two issues taken from my book of the same name. The first will be the reconstruction of Swansea Town Centre after the extensive damage in…
Website issues resolved
I believe there have been some issues with the website but I now think they have been sorted. I apologise if anyone has been inconvenienced!
General Custer – Shenandoah 1864
Whilst researching some American issues as they appear in nineteenth century Welsh newspapers I came across this unexpected detail. It is from the Cardiff Times on 18 November 1864 which picks up and repeats a report about an incident during the American Civil War. To General Cluster, in the Shenandoah Valley, belongs the proud pre-eminence of having been the first to…
Size Zero?
An interesting story from 1929 – Revue Girls preparing themselves for the stage by regaining “curved beauty.”.
West Glamorgan Family History Society
I will be speaking at the Annual General Meeting of the West Glamorgan Family History Society on Saturday 27 February 2016. I have been asked to speak about my work on gravestones. The title of my talk is The Secret of the Stones and during the presentation we will be visiting Cadoxton, Felindre, Pant Teg, Tonyrefail, Trealaw, Barry…
Bananas
I came across this news item in the Cambrian Daily Leader for 18 February 1914. It comes from a completely different world. Dr. George Arbour Stephens, a Swansea physician and social worker, carried out researches in connection “with that disease which has become almost fashionable nowadays, appendicitis.” He believed that it was due to the increased consumption…
The Brown Dog Riots
I have been researching the life of Frances Power Cobbe for an article for Welsh Country Magazine and I came across this unusual and forgotten story from the early twentieth century. Here is just a brief introduction to the Brown Dog Riots. It all began with a vivisection which was performed on a brown dog…
Rhys ap Thomas
My article in the January edition of Welsh Country Magazine is about the most important tomb in Wales – that of Rhys ap Thomas in St Peter’s Church in Carmarthen. For a time he was the most powerful man in Wales, because this is the man who killed a king, the man who struck the…
Special Offer The Complete Set
I now have available a new offer. You can now buy a complete set of my local history publications on the website. For £60 you can have one copy of each book (plus of course the Buy One Get One Free offer on Stories in Welsh Stone.) The price includes all postage and packing and you can…