This book arrived recently. Above – the Consumer’s Guide to the British Social Services (3rd Ed) There are multiple copies of the various editions of this guide from AbeBooks here. If you’re lucky you’ll find one for less than the cost of the postage! The first version is from 1967, this version is from 1973 … More Public services in late 1960s Cambridge
Not so long ago I stumbled across a postcard featuring a group of Temperance campaigners in Cambridge. Above – a photo of 50 years of the Cambridge Temperance Campaign The Temperance Movement – the campaign against the production, sale, and consumption of alcohol, was huge in Cambridge – and in many other places. At its … More The Nelson Street Massiv and the Adult School Movement
Recently uploaded by the British Newspaper Archive, these articles show how town and gown took to the new technology of moving pictures. Above – from the British Newspaper Archive. “The increased activity in the moving picture world is very marked in Cambridge just now. the pictures are just as popular with the undergraduates as with … More Cambridge’s lost early cinemas, 1912.
…and it was one of her friends from Cambridge who delivered her policy just after the Second World War. I stumbled across Amber Reeves – later Amber Blanco White almost by accident. It was in the process of writing my last blogpost on ‘new old books‘ – i.e. old books that I’ve bought second hand. … More The Newnham College graduate who made the case for nationalising the Bank of England
This blogpost is about the old Penguin/Pelican series of affordable books on politics and current affairs dating from the mid-20th Century. Above – four examples from the Penguin Early Pelican series – which has been indexed here. In the run up to the Second World War, they also produced a number of Penguin Special Editions … More On ‘New old books’ and their importance to history as well as today’s current affairs
The first in depth regional plan for Cambridge Borough and Cambridge County – today most of South Cambridgeshire and parts of East Cambridgeshire District Council areas. I covered some of what Davidge had written in my previous post looking at the impact of the motor car and the politics around it. Amongst other things this … More William Robert Davidge and the Cambridgeshire Regional Plan of 1934
Covering the importance of old books to new research I picked up this book in the RSPCA’s bookshop on Mill Road, Cambridge: The above book was by former civil servant William Plowden, and was first published in 1971 (this version 1973). It follows in a tradition of public policy books republished by Pelican at an … More The politics of the motor car and its impact on 20th Century Cambridge
I’m not entirely sure how the life and times of Geoffrey Theodore Garratt M.B.E. has been over-looked, because in the grand scheme of things his Establishment credentials were excellent. Had he not been killed in a munitions accident en route to see Sir Stafford Cripps in 1942, chances are he would have stood for Parliament … More Capt Geoffrey Theodore Garratt M.B.E. of Cambridge County Labour – author, journalist, anti-fascist.
A prominent building in Petersfield, it had its heart ripped out to make way for Cambridge’s first (and short-lived) supermarket in the 1960s. I still think this was one of the greatest town buildings in Cambridge and it was a scandal that the facade got demolished. And for what? The story of the Mill Road … More Redeveloping the Mill Road Playhouse Cinema
Mike Petty MBE found a letter which he has transcribed on Fenland History here. Turns out it was then debated by councillors before being forgotten about for the next three-quarters of a century. The call came from a local grocer – Edward Ives Hankin who lived on one of the oldest streets in Cambridge, Bene’t … More Calls for a new Museum of Cambridge – in 1858
