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Discovering the history
Saturday, 5 September 2026
The Children Who Learned to Live With War: How Britain’s Young Coped With Fear, Loss and Danger
Friday, 4 September 2026
Harald Hardrada: The Warrior King Who Invaded England Before William Landed
Harald Hardrada: The Warrior King Who Invaded England Before William
Landed
In my last post, we looked at the other men who believed England's crown
could, or should, be theirs. Today I want to look more closely at perhaps the
most formidable of them all.
Harald Hardrada, King of Norway.
Long before Harald came to England, he had already lived a life that sounds
almost too dramatic to be true.
Harald Sigurdsson was born in Norway at around 1015. As a teenager he fought
alongside his half-brother, King Olaf Haraldsson, at the Battle of Stiklestad
in 1030. Olaf was killed and, according to later accounts, Harald was wounded.
Following the defeat, he fled Norway.
But that was only the beginning.
Harald travelled east, spending time in Kievan Rus before eventually
reaching Constantinople. There he served in the famous Varangian Guard, an
elite force employed by the Byzantine emperors.
During these years he campaigned in different parts of the Byzantine world
and gained considerable military experience and wealth.
By the time Harald returned to Scandinavia, he was certainly no
inexperienced prince hoping somebody might hand him a crown.
He became joint King of Norway with his nephew Magnus the Good in 1046 and,
following Magnus's death the following year, Harald became sole king.
For years he fought unsuccessfully to gain control of Denmark before
eventually turning his attention towards another prize.
England.
Harald's claim to the English throne was complicated.
It rested largely on an alleged earlier agreement between King Harthacnut
and Magnus the Good concerning succession to their kingdoms. Magnus had
previously asserted a claim to England, and Harald regarded himself as having
inherited that claim.
It may not have been the strongest claim to a throne.
But Harald had something considerably more persuasive than paperwork.
An army.
And in 1066 he found an English ally.
Tostig Godwinson.
Tostig was the brother of King Harold Godwinson, but after losing his
position as Earl of Northumbria and being driven into exile, the relationship
between the brothers had broken down badly.
Now Tostig joined Harald.
That meant Harold Godwinson was not simply facing a foreign invasion.
His own brother was helping to lead it.
In September 1066, Harald's Norwegian fleet arrived in northern England. On
the 20th of September, Harald and Tostig defeated the forces of the Earls Edwin
and Morcar at the Battle of Fulford, near York.
York then submitted.
For a brief moment, Harald Hardrada must have believed his gamble was
working.
But Harold Godwinson was coming.
On the 25th of September 1066, the two armies met at Stamford Bridge.
Harald and Tostig appear to have been caught by surprise. What followed was
a ferocious battle in which the Norwegian army was decisively defeated. Harald
Hardrada was killed, traditionally said to have been struck in the throat by an
arrow, and Tostig was also killed.
Harald Hardrada's extraordinary career was over.
His defeat at Stamford Bridge is often described as marking the symbolic end
of the Viking Age, although Scandinavian warfare and raiding certainly did not
suddenly disappear after 1066.
Harold Godwinson had defeated one of the most experienced warriors in
Europe.
England was safe.
Or so it might have seemed.
Because just three days later, on the 28th of September 1066,
William of Normandy landed at Pevensey.
Harold had dealt with one man who wanted his crown.
Now another was waiting for him in the south.
And this time, the ending would be very different.
Do you think Harald Hardrada could actually have become King of England if
he had defeated Harold at Stamford Bridge?
The Children Caught in Britain’s War: How Bombs, Shelters and Evacuation Still Failed Them
The Children Caught in Britain’s War: How Bombs, Shelters and
Evacuation Still Failed Them
Imagine sending your child away because you believed it would save their
life.
Then imagine discovering that the journey to safety had placed them in
danger too.
Over the last few days, we have looked at the children who were evacuated,
the brothers and sisters who were sometimes separated and those who stayed
behind with their families.
Today I want to look at the darker side of their story.
The children who became casualties of the Second World War.
When we hear the word casualty, we often think of soldiers. But this was a
war in which the battlefield came directly to British towns and cities, and
thousands of children were killed or seriously injured.
During the Blitz alone, 7,736 children were killed and another 7,622 were
seriously wounded.
Bombing was the most obvious danger.
Children were killed when their homes were destroyed, when streets were hit
and when bombs fell on schools, shops and other buildings. Even when a
particular building was not being deliberately targeted, bombing from the air
could never be precise enough to protect the civilians living around factories,
docks, railway lines and other important targets.
One heartbreaking example happened at Sandhurst Road School in Catford,
south-east London.
On the 20th of January 1943, the children were having lunch when a German
bomb hit the school.
Thirty-eight pupils and six members of staff were killed and around sixty
more people were injured.
Among those who died was twelve-year-old Sylvia May Ellen Head.
But bombs were not the only reason children became casualties.
Sometimes the attempt to protect people created dangers of its own.
On the 3rd of March 1943, an air-raid warning sent people rushing towards
Bethnal Green Underground station in London, which was being used as a shelter.
A woman and child fell near the bottom of the entrance steps and people
behind continued moving forward in the darkness. Within seconds, a terrible
crush developed.
One hundred and seventy-three people died.
Sixty-two of them were children.
Perhaps the most extraordinary part of the story is that no enemy bomb
caused those deaths. People had gone underground because they believed it was
the safest place to be.
Even evacuation itself could end in tragedy.
Some British children were sent abroad because Canada and other parts of the
Commonwealth were thought to offer even greater safety than the British
countryside.
On the 17th of September 1940, the SS City of Benares was sailing
towards Canada carrying ninety child evacuees when it was torpedoed in the
Atlantic.
Only thirteen of those ninety children survived.
Seventy-seven were lost.
The disaster helped bring the government-sponsored overseas evacuation
scheme to an end.
There was another cruel twist to evacuation.
When the expected bombing failed to arrive during the early months of the
war, many parents decided they had had enough of being separated from their
children.
By January 1940, almost half of the evacuees had returned home.
Then, later that year, the Blitz began.
Some children therefore found themselves back in exactly the towns and
cities they had originally been moved away from to protect them.
And the danger continued even after an air raid had ended.
There could be burning buildings, shattered glass, unstable ruins and
unexploded bombs. Children were drawn to bomb sites, the piles of rubble could
quickly become makeshift playgrounds. They climbed through ruined buildings,
collected pieces of metal and sometimes came across unexploded bombs or
ammunition. What looked like an exciting wartime souvenir could still be
extremely dangerous, and children were repeatedly warned never to touch
unfamiliar objects.
It is easy to look back at photographs of wartime children with their
gas-mask boxes and little suitcases and think mainly about evacuation,
rationing and disrupted schooling.
But childhood itself had become dangerous.
A child could be sitting at a school desk, asleep in bed, travelling to
safety or walking towards an air-raid shelter when the war suddenly reached
them.
Perhaps that is one of the saddest things about the Home Front.
Adults could build shelters, arrange evacuations, issue gas masks and make
endless plans to keep children safe.
But they could never remove the danger completely.
Can anyone in your family remember being a child during the bombing,
or being hurried into an air-raid shelter when the sirens sounded?
Thursday, 3 September 2026
The First Anglo-Afghan War - Part Four: The Disastrous British Retreat from Kabul
The First Anglo-Afghan War - Part Four: The Disastrous British
Retreat from Kabul
Imagine leaving Kabul in the depths of winter.
Snow was all across the mountains. Food was running short. Thousands of
civilians were travelling alongside the soldiers.
Last Stand of the 44th Regiment at Gundamuck
Date: 1898
Artist: William Barnes Wollen
And somewhere ahead was Jalalabad, more than 90 miles away.
They had been promised safe passage.
Within days, the retreating column would be almost completely destroyed.
In Part Three, we saw how the growing resentment against the British
occupation finally erupted into the Kabul uprising of 1841. British political
officers were killed, including Sir William Macnaghten, and Major-General
William Elphinstone's position became increasingly desperate.
Today I want to continue the story and find out what happened when
Elphinstone finally agreed to abandon Kabul.
On the 6th of January 1842, approximately 4,500 British and
Indian troops marched out of the city accompanied by around 12,000 camp
followers.
These were not just soldiers retreating from a battlefield.
Among the column were servants, labourers, families, women and children with
baggage animals carrying what supplies could still be taken.
They were heading for the British garrison at Jalalabad.
The agreement which they left Kabul under was supposed to provide them with
protection.
It did not.
The column was soon being attacked as it struggled along narrow roads and
through mountain passes. Afghan fighters occupied the surrounding heights,
while cold and snow caused further suffering to the people who were already
exhausted and badly supplied.
Some froze to death.
Others collapsed from exhaustion.
Many were killed in the repeated attacks.
And as the column became stretched out along the route, maintaining any kind
of military order became increasingly difficult.
The retreat became a fight for survival.
Muhammad Akbar Khan, one of the principal Afghan leaders, continued
negotiating with the British officers. At different points, British women,
children and officers were handed over or taken into his custody.
Although becoming a captive must have been terrifying, it ultimately saved
the lives of a number of people who otherwise might have remained with the
doomed column.
Those who continued towards Jalalabad were disappearing in terrifying
numbers.
Eventually, only a tiny remnant of the original force remained.
Near Gandamak, on the 13th of January 1842,
surviving soldiers of the 44th (East Essex) Regiment found themselves
surrounded.
They made a final stand.
The 44th was the only British infantry regiment in Elphinstone’s
retreating force and most of those who had survived that far were killed in the
fighting at Gandamak. A handful survived or were taken prisoner.
But one exhausted figure was still moving towards Jalalabad.
His name was Dr William Brydon, an assistant surgeon.
Badly wounded and riding an exhausted horse, Brydon finally reached the
British position at Jalalabad on the 13th of January.
The sight of him arriving alone became one of the most famous images of the
entire war.
It also produced a story that has been repeated ever since: that Brydon was
the only survivor of the Kabul retreat.
That is not quite true.
A number of people survived because they had been taken captive or held as
hostages, while there were other survivors from the fighting. But Brydon's
extraordinary arrival at Jalalabad came to symbolise the destruction of the
retreating force.
Only a few years earlier, British forces had entered Afghanistan expecting
to remove one ruler, install another and secure their political influence in
the region.
Now an army had effectively disappeared along the road from Kabul.
It was one of the greatest military disasters of the Victorian era.
But Britain was not prepared to allow the story to end there.
Forces were already holding out at Jalalabad and Kandahar, and new armies
would soon advance back into Afghanistan.
In Part Five, I want to find out what happened when the British returned
towards Kabul - and whether their objective was rescue, revenge, restoring
their reputation, or a mixture of all three.
Wartime Schooldays: Evacuees, Air Raids, Digging for Victory and Playground Fights
Wartime Schooldays: Evacuees, Air Raids, Digging for Victory and Playground Fights
Imagine arriving at school in the morning and not knowing whether you would spend the day learning arithmetic, digging vegetables, sheltering from an air raid or being sent home because there was simply nowhere for your class to go.
For children growing up during the Second World War, education could look very different from the school day we recognise today.
Today I want to find out what happened to Britain’s schoolchildren during the war, including something we sometimes forget: when thousands of evacuees arrived in new towns and villages, they did not always receive a warm welcome from the local children.
When war began in September 1939, the education system was immediately disrupted.
Hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren were evacuated from cities considered vulnerable to bombing. Many travelled with their teachers, but once they reached the countryside they often had to join local schools that were already full.
There simply were not enough classrooms.
Some schools operated shift systems, with local children attending lessons during one part of the day and evacuees using the building during another. Lessons could also take place in church halls, village halls and other temporary accommodation.
In some areas, formal schooling was severely reduced for weeks or even months.
Some school buildings were requisitioned for wartime purposes but others were damaged or destroyed by bombing.
And then there were the teachers.
Men who had been teaching before the war could be called into military service, while other teachers left for different forms of war work. Retired teachers and others were sometimes brought in to help, but staffing shortages added another problem to an already disrupted system.
Children also had to learn how to respond to something no previous generation of British schoolchildren had experienced on such a scale.
Air raids.
Schools practised drills. Children learned how to reach shelters quickly and were expected to bring their gas masks with them. Lessons might suddenly stop when an air-raid warning sounded, with everyone heading for whatever shelter was available.
Wartime education was not only about reading, writing and arithmetic.
Children were encouraged to take part in the wider war effort.
Under the Dig for Victory campaign, school grounds and gardens could be turned over to growing food. Children learned to plant and tend vegetables, helping to increase food production at a time when imported supplies were under enormous pressure.
For some pupils, digging, planting and harvesting became almost another school subject.
There were also collections for salvage. Children gathered things up like waste paper and metal, and schools encouraged thrift and discouraged unnecessary waste.
And then there was the social side of evacuation.
It is tempting to imagine evacuated children arriving in country schools and immediately making lots of new friends.
Sometimes they did.
But not always.
Evacuees could arrive with unfamiliar accents, different clothes and different habits. Local children might think of them as outsiders, and evacuees sometimes thought the countryside children were strange.
There could also be resentment.
Local classrooms were suddenly more crowded. Teachers had new pupils to accommodate and village life had changed.
Arguments, name-calling and playground fights between evacuees and local children certainly happened.
We know this was not simply a general possibility because some evacuees later remembered it happening to them. Frederick Edward Wooding recalled bullying and fights among boys during his wartime schooldays, while Michael Wetton, who was evacuated to Gloucestershire in 1940, remembered being bullied by local children. Experiences varied enormously, and many evacuees did make good friends, but for some children arriving at a strange school meant coping not only with homesickness and unfamiliar lessons, but also with teasing, arguments and sometimes physical fights.
City children might be mocked for their accents or lack of knowledge about country life, while evacuees could also tease their new classmates. For children who were already frightened, homesick and separated from their parents, even a playground disagreement could feel enormous.
Of course, friendships formed too. Some evacuated children remained close to the people they met for the rest of their lives.
Wartime schooling was therefore far more than lessons interrupted by air raids.
For an entire generation of children, the war followed them right through the school gates.
If you had been an evacuee arriving at a completely new school, what do you think you would have found hardest: the lessons, the homesickness or trying to make new friends?
Wednesday, 2 September 2026
Nicholas Carew: Henry VIII’s Favourite Who Helped Bring Down a Queen - Then Fell Victim to Tudor Politics Himself
The Children Who Stayed Behind: What Happened to Those Who Were Never Evacuated?
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