How it all started for me! This is the history of the Pillinger Family that I began to unearth nearly 50 years ago when I stumbled across a gravestone in St Luke’s churchyard in...
Killed in a Coalpit, Bedminster’ is the second of my ‘Coalpit’ trilogy. It was compiled slightly ‘pot luck fashion’ before old newspapers were on line and therefore I am aware that there are many...
The Victorian Girl is the Cinderella story in reverse. Mary Britton, previously Leighton, was a dear old soul, who was “in Service’ in Downend from leaving school until her late marriage to Samuel Britton....
At 6 a.m. on Friday, the 20th June 1851, ‘a double turn’ (twice as many men as usual) descended Northside Pit, (Goulstone, Garrett & Co.) at Bedminster. The pit was 135 fathoms deep and...
A headline on the Western Daily Press of 13.2.1875 reads: DEATH OF A VETERAN SOLDIER AT STAPLETON WORKHOUSE. A meeting of the Bristol Board of Guardians discussed the decease of John HILL, a Bristol...
Now that a breath taking Six Nations has drawn to a close I would like to shed some light on James Peters, the first black rugby player to represent England. It would be eighty...
On the way to Ireland in October 2018, I was given the option of choosing somewhere to stop on our way to the ferry. The “lads” my husband George and our son Kevin, had...
I am now starting on a short history of my early life of what I remember about the District of Keynsham where I worked and what I did, also some of the chief events...
As told to me by the late Leslie Phillips, 1905-1995. Leslie said “I worked for H.H. & S. Budgett from October 1927 to May 1928. I was their first graduate entrant, having come straight...
I wrote the above book, “Sappho & her Sisters” following a chance discovery of the seamen belonging to Bristol Steam Navigation Company’s ship “Sappho” who had the misfortune to be “Bottled Up” in Hamburg...
I have been researching the social history of the West Country for 50+ years. During this time I have collated information on a wide range of people living and working in the West Country including miners, ethnic minorities, petty criminals, sailors, tommies, benefactors, brassmakers and many more. The thing that I find amazing is that ordinary people always lived extraordinary lives. I hope you like my blog that brings together my lifetime of research.
My life on the Ocean Wave: “Some like Betty Grable….”
02 September 2026
Miracles take a little longer: Dorothy Vinter and me.
29 August 2026
