A quick background shot on television of Sydney Harbour Bridge reminded me of watching silent black and white footage on the building of the Tyne Bridge in Newcastle’s Discovery Museum a few years before (the gift shop doing a roaring trade in ‘coal from Newcastle’). Newcastle is a Roman city … Continue reading
It’s rare for a region to change its name from one European explorer to another, but that’s exactly what happened with Tasmania. The territory’s name officially changed from Van Diemen’s Land on 1st January 1856. I have yet to make it to Australia, a fact that echoes the actions of … Continue reading
Scientists like a working holiday. Under the auspices of scientific research I managed to make it as far afield as Singapore, New Zealand, and Manchester. Charles Darwin made it to the Galapagos Islands. Alfred Russell Wallace reached the Malay Archipelago, a catch-all term relating predominantly to modern day Indonesia. … Continue reading
Being a Croydon boy, it’s sometimes difficult to be proud of the place I was born and brought up, faced with the obvious jokes and the ugly post war buildings. For its faults, of which there are many, Croydon does have things to be proud of. For one, it isn’t … Continue reading
Naming Christmas Two crewmen aboard the British ship Cygnet were the first recorded humans to step foot on Christmas Island in March 1688, though the uninhabited island had been first sighted back on Christmas day in 1643 by William Mynors. On 6th June 1688 it was claimed for the British … Continue reading