First World War
Duty calls
From ‘The Volunteer Training Corps’, The Spectator, 8 April 1916: If we were the Government, we would state plainly that in the…
All quiet on the Western Front
From ‘Observing: an average day’, The Spectator, 15 April 1916: 5.10 a.m. The signaller on duty at the telephone has just said…
Long life
The Royal College of Nursing (founded in 1916 with 34 members, but now with 440,000) is busy celebrating its centenary;…
Rebel angels
The reverence for those involved in the Easter Rising is evident in an exhibition devoted to its centenary, says Harry Mount
Pride and prejudice
Jonathan Lynn, co-author of Yes Minister, has excavated the history of France during the two world wars and discovered dramatic…
What to do with Syria?
From ‘The future of Syria’, The Spectator, 5 February 1916: We say with all the emphasis at our command, and…
Next year’s war
From ‘The Military Situation’, The Spectator, 1 January 1916: The opening of a new year is a time for taking stock…
In a class of their own
Painters and sculptors are highly averse to being labelled. So much so that it seems fairly certain that, if asked,…
The still point
Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s Sunset Song is the best-remembered title of a short career. Born in 1901, he was dead by…
Ian Rankin’s diary: Paris, ignoring Twitter and understanding evil
After ten days away, I spent last Friday at home alone, catching up on washing, shopping for cat food, answering…
From the archives: the liberty of the battlefield
From ‘Soldiers for the land’, The Spectator, 13 November 1915: It is certain that, when the war is over, tens of…
The secret brilliance of Prince Philip’s ‘gaffes’
I’ve just been on the receiving end of a Prince Philip gaffe, of sorts, and I loved it. It was…
From the archives: W.G. Grace’s legacy on the Western Front
From ‘W.G.’, The Spectator, 30 October 1915: The late Dr. W.G. Grace had become in his lifetime a legend, and he is…
Barometer
The death of Diesel The Volkswagen scandal has brought into question the future of the diesel engine. A century ago…
Fighting talk
If there’s one thing scarcer than hen’s teeth in serious choreography nowadays, it’s a light heart. When was the last…
Socialist Cluedo
What a load of manipulative, hysterical tosh is An Inspector Calls. It wasn’t a work with which I was familiar…
Museum relic
Do we really need museums in the age of Wikipedia and Google? William Cook thinks we do but his children don’t agree
Letters
Enemies within Sir: I thought Matthew Parris was typically incisive in his last column, but perhaps not quite as much…
Christ of the coal mines
William Cook reports from the sooty netherworld that made an artist of Vincent Van Gogh
At the start of a long war, would we remember our sense of duty?
Reading Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man, as I have recently, you cannot help but be struck by what a perfectly…
Parenting
‘Not still War and Peace!’ exclaimed my husband on 1 January during the all-day Tolstoy splurge on Radio 4. In reality…
The nation’s mental age is four, and dropping
I wonder how long it will be before we actually crawl back into the womb? The average mental age of…
India’s sacrifice
At six o’clock on 31 May 1916, an Indian soldier who had been captured on the Western Front alongside British…
On war and remembrance
There’s a plausible theory — recently rehearsed in the BBC’s excellent two-part documentary The Lion’s Last Roar? — that our…
High life
The time-honoured saying that England’s great battles have been won on the playing fields of Eton is a lot of…
