Enjoying retirement
In The Red Rose County
'Court No 1 The Old Bailey' tells in great detail the story of 11 trials between 1907 and 2003. The author, Thomas Grant, is a practising QC so the ups and downs and why's and wherefores of prosecution and defence is all there. However what is different and very refreshing is that each trial is set firmly in the context of its times, so we are treated to a whole social history of the last century. And how remarkable that history is. You are constantly reminded that your predecessors were made of different cloth to us, and how different it was even one generation back. Thoroughly interesting.
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Only one problem with this excellent biography, and that is that the second instalment is still being researched. I might be dead by then. For those of us who lived through the Sixties JFK was a politician like no other, and there have certainly been no comparable claimants to the title of Leader of the Free World since him. He exuded magic. He was a politician you could really believe in. In this first volume which takes him up to 1956 when he narrowly failed to secure the nomination for Vice-President, we get intimately involved with his family. And what a family. His father Joe was mapping out his own career to take on the Presidency when he hit a brick wall. As ambassador to the UK in the lead up to WWII he took the misguided path of total support for Appeasement. Not only that, but he refused to call out the dictators Hitler and Mussolini. Bad mistake. He was recalled and his political career abruptly ended. He then tried to live his dreams through his eldest son Joe. Unfortunately he had a bad end as a brave pilot. It was only then that the mantle became JFK's. What a man. His heroics in rescuing his gunboat crew are revealed in great detail. His every illness, and my goodness there were many, and serious (he was read the Last Rites on 2 or 3 occasions) are laid out and we can only wonder how he coped. The tragedies that befell his family are piled one on top of the other...his own life being just The Great Tragedy. Someone said JFK despite all the publicity surrounding his death, really hasn't been given the attention he deserves. He certainly has it now in this warts and all biography. Truly memorable. Newly opened, we were intrigued what we would find at Plymouth's Box Museum which is an amalgamation of the City's Museum, Art Gallery and Archive. Contrary to what the Moaning Minnies at the Guardian, and other critics have said, the Box does not look like a shipping container blown up from the docks. When we visited in the sunshine it was a sparkling and impressive front which merged old and new impressively. And when you get inside the design shows that it is full of light and terrific spaces. We had booked lunch and really enjoyed our meal sitting in the bright open foyer looking out at the square and the church opposite (part of the Box complex). The first room we visited was the 'Woolly Mammoth' room. Engaging as soon as you enter. The displays were very involving being a mixture of display, slide show, video and more. and there were stories imaginatively told everywhere...whether it was the message in a bottle that had taken over 100 years to reach its final destination or stories of some of the great Victorian collectors, again presented enticingly.... Quantity and quality everywhere you looked...... The story of Drake of course brought out his historical significance, his place as Hero, but also told, inevitably, of his slave trading, and this is how it should be. Everything in context. Thank you Plymouth Museums! At one point the story of Plymouth was shown in wrap-around cinema style....very good we thought. The 'Art Room' almost made you gasp at the sheer scale of the full-height wall display... And I haven't seen paintings displayed so well before...with themes you can pick up on yourself. with lots to interest including, for instance, Joshua Reynolds sketchbooks....... and here the preliminary sketches to the side of the main seascape which we have seen often in Newlyn... all told a Museum you would want to return to....often. The staff were brilliant. It's free. What more do you want? I hope those critics scurried back to London as quickly as they came....it's where they belong! It's the visitors who are important and, as far as I can see, no-one will leave unimpressed, and wanting to come back. |
Keith & Frances SmithArchives
August 2023
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