Barny

Thank you for taking us with you on that trip down Memory Lane. What a lovely story. Here’s to Susie.

That, of course, is because, while ”snwcr’ is one of the many words the Welsh have borrowed from English and re-spelt (rather entertainingly) phonetically in Welsh, ‘heddlu’ (hethly) is a real Welsh word. But the Welsh for policeman is ‘plismon’, and for policewoman – wait for it – ‘plismones’.

Well-written and informative blog, as always. Thank you.

I love seeing Welsh words and working out how they might be pronounced. I knew how to pronounce Abergele because my grandmother, father and aunt were evacuated there during the war, and Gran used to speak of it.

Many years ago, the law firm I worked at acted for a client buying a snooker…[Read more]

Ath: ‘Herald of Free Enterprise’, Grenfell Tower…

Libby: When we first moved to Wales we did a Welsh language course for a couple of years. It’s a hell of a hard language to learn (for example, there are at least a dozen ways of turning a singular noun into a plural and there are no hard and fast rules, so you have to remember each noun’s…[Read more]

Thank you for this post, Richard. I didn’t know the Manchester-Liverpool route was the first intercity connection. My WIP features the Manchester Ship Canal in the 1930s. I believe, though I haven’t checked my notes, that the Port of Manchester docks had the largest private railway system in the country at that time.

Thank you for the…[Read more]

Yes, I agree with @raine and @jillybean. Boyne is clearly lazy and arrogant with it. I recall some online stoush he had with the Auschwitz Memorial Museum (!!) when they criticised the historical accuracy of his book, and his snooty and dismissive response. I have despised him since I must say. I tend to research more than I need but I have a…[Read more]

Fascinating, Richard. Rich’s words may have been ahead of their time, but that serves to emphasise how persistent the root causes of these disasters are. We still do it, even with our modern safety culture. Sadly, there are forces working to erode what gains have been made. The “Health & Safety Gone Mad” slogan may not belong to a formal campaign;…[Read more]

Totally agree re Boyne, @jillybean. He’s lazy and complacent, and doesn’t care who he hurts as a result.

Having recently discovered the horrors of researching hist fic, I must admit to struggling with knowing where the line is between really getting stuck on details that don’t matter, and making sure the whole worldbuilding feels authentic.…[Read more]

Pretty sure Stephen King now has a team of fact checkers. But yes I imagine the tone of those letters is gleeful. What I’ll say for King is that even though he’s writing speculative fiction, he portrays characters who’ve had life experiences he has not respectfully. The same cannot be said for Boyne! One of the big problems with The Boy in the…[Read more]