June 2nd Thursday. Ruth this morning and for lunch – Sheila did a splendid one, while Joan did sewing for me – fair division of labour. Geraldine looked in for tea, & has been summoned to appear in court about knocking that girl off her bicycle, and feeling rather flummoxed about it. Horrid heavy grey day, and the cat has got three of our first baby blackbirds! The fourth has survived, & parents are looking after it: Ray is going to put it in the garage for the night, for safety’s sake.
… Enid very deaf these days, and a bit exhausting … (Diary, 1/6/88)
June 1st Wednesday. Joan arrived safely just after lunch. Enid and Jim Hughes here for the afternoon, nice, but Enid very deaf these days, & a bit exhausting.
Diary, 31/5/88
May 31st Tuesday. Can’t remember what did.
Putting someone to the Sword (at Sunset) at publishers
THERE IS NO ‘E’ in the family name of ROSEMARY SUTCLIFF, the historical novelist and writer of children’s books. Alerted by the excellent blog Rosemary Sutcliff: An Appreciation , I am chasing after Atlantic, the publishers of a new edition of Sword at Sunset (by Rosemary Sutcliff). Yet again I need to assert that it is Rosemary Sutcliff without an E!
- More examples on this blog of people who should know better than mis-spelling Rosemary Sutcliff (sic) as Rosemary Sutcliffe – with an E!
How does the fall of the Roman Empire throw light upon our current crises?
Historian and broadcaster Michael Wood has been musing about whether the time Britain slid into chaos at the end of the Roman Empire is also a distant mirror of our present crises. (Thank you Janet Webb for alerting me). He concludes a fascinating article:
Well, the fall of Rome serves to remind us that complex societies can, and do, break down. There is rarely one reason. Rather, there are multiple causes that come together in a perfect storm, as they did around 400AD.
But in time society recovers, for societies after all are made by people, and one guesses that the ones that recover quickest are the ones which are most adaptive, and perhaps too the ones with the strongest sense of identity and history – the strongest sense of “group feeling”.
Source: BBC News – Viewpoint: The time Britain slid into chaos.
ROSEMARY SUTCLIFF (1920-92) 