1164 days ago
When the plague swept through this part of the world, the doors of the Church in this village stayed open at all times. Folks sought comfort and the pews were packed. Three vicars died of that plague, for it was one where the survival rate was not anywhere near 99%, but the Church stood by its flock. Wind forward to 2021.
1225 days ago
I note that Matt Hancock has a First Class degree in PPE from Oxford and admit that I cannot match his Geoff. I only achieved a Desmond from the same place in the same subject and, at the time, I remember thinking that I was jolly lucky not to have racked up a Douglas. I am pretty sure that my late uncle Christopher Booker had the same feeling after coming away with a second from Cambridge where he read history.
1238 days ago
Back at the height of the first lockdown to beat Covid and save the NHS, I was rationed as to how much flour and yeast I could buy at any one time as, in droves, folks started home baking. As I noted at the time, if one reads Defoe’s account of the Great Plague, people assumed in 1665 as they assumed in 2020 that changes in the way we behaved would be permanent. They will not be.
