1870: Britain’s First Victorian Bicycle Club! (22.5.2023)

If the ‘Playing Fields of Eton’ produced the victors at Waterloo – the slums of London, Manchester and Birmingham (which produced the working class Army of Wellington) certainly could NOT produce those who could ‘pedal’ a rather crude bicycle (by today’s standards) and safely navigate this device whilst travelling much slower than ten miles an hour! Still, once the ‘class’ parameters were firmly established – what was such a progressive organisation to be called?

Henry VIII: St Alban’s the Martyr Church (Cheam) – Constructed from a Nonsuch Royal Stable! (14.5.2023)

The wood used for the roof (and support beams) dates to about 1550 CE – and was originally a very large royal stable used by King Henry VIII and I am told – his daughter – Queen Elizabeth I! It was dismantled from its original site (adjacent to Nonsuch Palace) by Shipwrights – and brought to what was once a remote area of Cheam – and reassembled (with added contemporary brickwork) to form a very large Church! The wood would have been part of a royal forest cultivated in the area – grown to make ships, buildings and other required ‘royal’ structures! Therefore, the wood itself will be far older than the 1550 CE date the barn is believed to have been originally constructed! The beams are held together entirely by wooden-pegs – just as they were originally designned to be – with no ‘modern’ nails or connecting materials! Indeed, Shipwrights reconstructed this building as if they were building a wooden ship!

NHS: UK MidWives Fail to Support Strike Action!

This result allows the Tory government to carrying-on its privatisation plan and implement a US-style insurance healthcare scheme that only cares for the rich and punishes the poor and disabled for being ill! Sad news! What follows is the standard email sent to all Union Members of the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) explaining this tragic result. Remember the Tories clapping, cheering and stamping their feet after the UK Parliament voted down a 1% payrise after thousands of frontline NHS Staff had died fighting Covid-19 – because the same Tory government had refused to provide effective PPE. Gee survived because our Comrades in the Communist Party of China – when they heard about how the Tory Party was killing its own NHS Staff – felt compelled to send us a free supply of face masks for Gee to wear at work!

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