To love is so startling it leaves little time for anything else. Emily Dickinson.

  One person that would have been over the moon to hear all about my canine partner adventures, to see pictures and support me every step of the way had she been able has just passed away last month, a week before her 97th birthday.

 She hadn`t been able to write for a couple of years, as dementia had taken over. I always felt that was such an injustice to a woman that was always so sharp-minded, so youthful in her thinking even through her elder years. What a life she must have had though and so many historic changes in her life, both good, bad and wonderous!

1920

Women at Oxford University are allowed to receive degrees

Academic halls for women were first established at Oxford in the 19th century, but although women had been able to attend degree level courses, they could not receive degrees until 1920.

 

25 April 1920

Britain is given mandates for Mesopotamia and Palestine

The mandate system was conceived by US President Woodrow Wilson. France and Britain were commanded to govern their mandates in the interests of their inhabitants, until these territories were ready to be admitted to the League of Nations. The British took over two areas that had previously formed part of the now defunct Ottoman Empire.

 

1 July 1920

First British high commissioner of Palestine is appointed

In 1917, the Balfour Declaration had given official British support for a Jewish national home in Palestine. The territory’s new high commissioner, former Home Secretary Sir Herbert Samuel, was Jewish, but he was determined to deal even-handedly with the Palestinian Arabs and the increasing numbers of Jewish immigrants. In May 1921, Arab unrest caused Samuel to halt Jewish immigration.

 

July 1921

Unemployment reaches a post-war high of 2.5 million

Prime Minister David Lloyd George had promised ‘a land fit for heroes’ following World War One, but after a short post-war boom, demobilised soldiers found it increasingly difficult to get work. Deprivation was widespread and industrial relations deteriorated. War debts to the United States and non-payment of European allies’ war debts meant the government could not pay for many planned reforms. The 1922 Geddes Report recommended heavy cuts in education, public health and workers’ benefits.

 

23 August 1921

British mandate of Mesopotamia becomes the Kingdom of Iraq

The three former Ottoman provinces of Baghdad, Basra and Mosul, named Iraq by the British, were in a state of revolt. In an effort to quell the unrest, Emir Faisal was made king and administrator of the country. King Faisal was a member of the Hashemite family, who had been important British allies against the Ottoman Empire.

 

6 December 1921

Anglo-Irish Peace Treaty is signed, resulting in partition of the island

This treaty ended the war between the breakaway southern Irish Republic and Britain, and was supposed to resolve the sectarian ‘Ulster problem’ by partitioning Ireland. It turned southern Ireland into a dominion – rather than a republic – called the ‘Irish Free State’, with the British sovereign as head of state. The fact that the treaty still bound Ireland to Britain caused deep conflict and led to the outbreak of the Irish Civil War.

 

28 June 1922

Irish Civil War breaks out

The civil war was ignited by the Anglo-Irish Peace Treaty, which created a partitioned Irish ‘Free State’ within the British Empire. The pro-treaty faction under Michael Collins accepted partition and believed the treaty would eventually lead to a republic. The anti-treaty faction, led by Éamon de Valera, rejected partition and wanted a republic immediately. The war ended in victory for the pro-treaty Free State government under Collins (who was assassinated) but caused lasting bitterness.

 

19 October 1922

Prime Minister David Lloyd George resigns as his wartime coalition breaks up

The wartime coalition of Conservatives and David Lloyd George’s Liberals won the 1918 general election and began the work of national recovery after World War One. But in 1922, Tory backbenchers overruled their own party leader and voted to leave the coalition, resuming independence as Conservatives. They were disgusted by Lloyd George’s Anglo-Irish Treaty and fearful he was about to go to war with Turkey. With his government fatally compromised, Lloyd George resigned.

 

23 October 1922

Conservative Andrew Bonar Law becomes prime minister

Having precipitated the fall of David Lloyd George’s Liberal-Conservative coalition government with a brilliant speech to his Conservative colleagues, Andrew Bonar Law was invited by George V to form a government. Law called a general election on 15 November 1922. The Conservatives won 344 seats, Labour 142, National Liberals (Lloyd George’s party) approximately 53, Liberals (under Herbert Asquith) approximately 62. Ill health forced Bonar Law to retire in 1923. He died six months later.

 

15 May 1923

The British Mandate of Transjordan becomes a semi-independent state

The mandate for Palestine was divided along the River Jordan, with ‘Transjordan’ on the eastern side. The Hashemite Emir Abdullah, eldest son of Britain’s ally the Sharif Hussein of Mecca, became ruler of the territory. In 1946, Transjordan received independence and Abdullah became King Abdullah I of Jordan.

 

22 May 1923

Conservative Stanley Baldwin becomes prime minister

Conservative Stanley Baldwin became prime minister, with Neville Chamberlain as chancellor of the exchequer, after Andrew Bonar Law resigned due to ill health. Baldwin proposed to abandon free trade, hoping that tariff reform would help to beat unemployment – an unpopular measure. Following the elections of December 1923, the reunited Liberals joined Labour to extinguish tariff reform by a vote of no confidence. Baldwin resigned.

23 January 1924

Ramsay Macdonald becomes the first Labour prime minister

After the vote of no confidence that saw Stanley Baldwin resign as prime minister, the leader of the largest opposition party, Ramsay Macdonald, was called on to form a minority Labour government. Labour was unable to realise its more radical ambitions because of its reliance on Liberal support. This helped Macdonald allay fears that a party representing the working class must be revolutionary, but disappointed many supporters on the left.

 

29 October 1924

Conservatives win a landslide election following the ‘Zinoviev Letter’

In February 1924, the Labour government formally recognised the Soviet Union, despite nervousness about Communist ambitions. In October, MI5 intercepted an apparently seditious letter from a Soviet official to British communists. Prime Minister Ramsay Macdonald agreed to the suppression of the ‘Zinoviev letter’, but it was leaked just before the election. Stanley Baldwin’s Conservatives won by a landslide. Labour’s share of the vote actually increased, but the Liberals were totally eclipsed.

 

28 April 1925

Chancellor Winston Churchill returns Britain to the ‘Gold Standard’

In his first budget as chancellor of the exchequer, Winston Churchill returned Britain to its pre-1914 monetary system, whereby sterling was fixed at a price reflecting the country’s gold reserves. The move resulted in massive deflation and overvaluing of the pound. This made British manufacturing industries uncompetitive, which in turn exacerbated the massive economic problems Britain was to face in the 1930s.

 

5 August 1925

‘Plaid Cymru’ is formed to disseminate knowledge of the Welsh language

Although the party was initially formed to promote Welsh language and culture, by the 1930s it had a political agenda and was determined that Wales should achieve independent status as a dominion.

 

26 January 1926

John Logie Baird gives the first public demonstration of television

John Logie Baird, a Scottish engineer and inventor, gave a demonstration of a machine for the transmission of pictures, which he called ‘television’. Around 50 scientists assembled in his attic workshop in London to witness the event. It was not until after the World War Two that televisions became widely available.

 

3 May 1926

General strike is declared after miners reject the Samuel Report

The Samuel Report sought to rationalise the British coal industry, whose coal had become too expensive, through pay cuts and increased hours. The Trades Union Congress (TUC) ordered a general strike. Well-organised government emergency measures and the lack of widespread public support for the strikers meant it was called off after nine days.

 

16 May 1926

Irish politician Éamon de Valera establishes the Fianna Fáil party

The Irish Civil War made the Irish Free State a reality. Éamon de Valera, who had fought against the treaty that established the Free State, now created the Fianna Fáil party to participate in its political life. Fianna Fáil members elected to the Free State’s Dáil (parliament) initially refused to take their seats unless the oath of allegiance to the British sovereign was abolished. Faced with exclusion from politics, Fianna Fáil eventually took the oath, dismissing it as an ’empty formula’.

 

19 October 1926

Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa are recognised as autonomous

In 1923, a dominion’s right to make a treaty with a foreign power had been accepted. The Imperial Conference in London went further towards legally defining a dominion by recognising that the dominions (Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa) were autonomous and equal in status, a decision that was later affirmed by the 1931 Statute of Westminster.

 

1 January 1927

British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is created

A group of radio manufacturers, including radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi, set up the British Broadcasting Company in 1922. In 1927 the company was granted a Royal Charter, becoming the British Broadcasting Corporation under John Reith. Reith’s mission was improve Britain through broadcasting, and he famously instructed the corporation to ‘inform, educate and entertain’.

 

7 May 1928

All women over the age of 21 get the vote

The fifth Reform Act brought in by the Conservative government altered the 1918 Representation of the People Act, which had only allowed women over 30 who owned property to be enfranchised. The new act gave women the vote on the same terms as men.

 

September 1928

The first ‘talkie’ (film with dialogue) is shown in Britain

British audiences were introduced to talking pictures when the ‘The Jazz Singer’, opened in London. Cinema-going was immensely popular during the 1920s and 1930s and virtually every town, suburb and major housing development had at least one cinema. There was often a double bill of a main and ‘B’ feature, supported by a newsreel.

 

30 September 1928

Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin

While working at St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington, London, Alexander Fleming noticed that a mould growing on a dish had stopped bacteria developing. Howard Florey and Ernst Chain developed penicillin further so it could be used as a drug, but it was not until World War Two that it began to be mass produced.

 

30 May 1929

Labour wins the general election with Ramsay Macdonald as prime minister

Ramsay Macdonald headed the first Labour government with a clear majority. It lasted for two years. Labour won 287 seats, the Conservatives 262 and the Liberals 59. Macdonald’s administration coincided with the Great Depression, a global economic slump triggered by the Wall Street Crash. Unemployment jumped by one million in 1930, and in some industrial towns reached 75%.

 

24 October 1929

Wall Street Crash sparks the Great Depression

The crash of the American Wall Street financial markets in 1929 crippled the economies of the US and Europe, resulting in the Great Depression. In Britain, unemployment had peaked just below three million by 1932. It was only with rearmament in the period immediately before the outbreak of World War Two that the worst of the Depression could be said to be over.

 

21 January 1930

London Conference on Naval Disarmament starts

A powerful disarmament movement reached the peak of its activities in the 1930s. Ramsay Macdonald, a committed internationalist and pacifist, was an enthusiastic believer that the League of Nations could make the world disarm through dialogue. But in 1931, Japan seized Manchuria and pulled out of the League. The rise of militarist regimes across Europe meant that by 1933 the idea of ‘collective security’ was looking increasingly unworkable.

 

12 March 1930

Mohandas Gandhi leads a march to the sea in protest against the Indian salt monopoly

Mohandas Gandhi defied the British government, which had a monopoly on salt-making, by leading a 400km march to the sea to make his own salt. Five million Indians copied him in defiance of the government. Gandhi was imprisoned from 1930-1931, as were approximately 60,000 others.

 

24 June 1930

‘Simon Report’ proposes representative government for India

In 1927, a parliamentary commission headed by Sir John Simon was sent to India to investigate grievances and make recommendations on the future of the country. Notably, the commission did not have any Indian members. Although the commission recommended representative government in the provinces (provincial assemblies), it advised that power should remain with the British Viceroy. The Indian National Congress, which wanted dominion status granted immediately, organised huge demonstrations.

 

12 November 1930

‘Round Table’ conference on India opens in London

Three of these conferences took place from 1930-1933, the last of which failed to include any Indian members. The collapse of the Round Table talks led to further mass non-cooperation in India. A new Government of India Act was passed in 1935, granting Indians an elected assembly and extending the powers of the eleven provincial assemblies.

 

4 March 1931

Mohandas Gandhi agrees to suspend civil disobedience in India

With popular protests causing significant problems, the viceroy of India, Lord Irwin, agreed the Delhi Pact, under which political prisoners would be released in return for suspension of the civil disobedience movement. In the same year, Mohandas Gandhi attended a Round Table conference as the sole representative of the Indian National Congress (INC). Gandhi was promised dominion status for India, but it was rejected by the INC because he had failed to consult its minority leaders.

 

22 – 23 August 1931

Prime Minister Ramsay Macdonald resigns in a row over the budget

Prime Minister Ramsay Macdonald asked a commission, headed by Sir George May, to investigate Britain’s dire economic situation. The May Committee recommended slashing government expenditure, including unemployment benefit. Macdonald agreed, but the measures were voted down by his cabinet colleagues. He offered his resignation to the king, George V, but was instead persuaded to lead a ‘national government’ coalition, which included Conservatives and Liberals, but only three Labour ministers.

 

27 October 1931

‘National government’ coalition wins the election, but Labour support plummets

Prime Minister Ramsay Macdonald called a general election to seek legitimacy for his ‘national government’ coalition. He was returned to power with 556 pro-national government MPs, of which 471 were Conservatives. The Labour Party expelled Macdonald for what was perceived as treachery. The new national government forced through the measures that Macdonald’s Labour colleagues had vehemently opposed.

 

16 February 1932

Éamon De Valera’s Fianna Fáil party wins the Irish general election

Once the champion of armed opposition to the Irish Free State, Éamon De Valera now rose to lead it with this general election victory. After a second general election win in 1933, De Valera began unilaterally dismantling the Irish Free State’s relationship with Britain. A trade war began after Fianna Fáil reneged on a £100 million loan from the British government.

 

1 October 1932

Oswald Mosley founds the British Union of Fascists

Oswald Mosley, formerly a Conservative and then Labour member of parliament, modelled his party along Italian fascist lines. The party never became part of the political mainstream and was banned in 1940. Moseley was interned during the war and twice attempted unsuccessfully to return to parliament in post-war Britain. He died in 1980.

 

3 October 1932

Iraq joins the League of Nations after the British mandate ends

Iraq became independent under King Faisal, who died in 1933. Its strategic importance and oil reserves ensured that Britain maintained a military presence there. During World War Two the British occupied Iraq, as the pro-Axis government intended to cut oil supplies and British access between Egypt and India.

 

1934

Scottish Nationalist Party is founded to fight for an independent Scotland

Scottish ‘Home Rule’ had been supported by both 19th-century Liberals and 20th-century Labour, but had made no progress. The Scottish Nationalist Party was an amalgam of the left-leaning National Party of Scotland (NPS) and the more right-wing Scottish Party. Its objective was to secede from the United Kingdom.

 

19 July 1934

New air defence programme adds 41 squadrons to the RAF

In 1933, German leader Adolf Hitler had withdrawn from the Disarmament Conference and the League of Nations in order to begin re-arming. Despite a 1935 League of Nations ‘peace ballot’ that showed 90% of the British public favoured multilateral disarmament, the British government reluctantly began to re-arm. There remained a strong political determination to avoid war at all costs.

 

22 September 1934

Gresford Mine Disaster kills 266 in North Wales

This explosion, which killed 266 men, was one of the worst disasters in British mining history. Two hundred children were left fatherless in an area of North Wales where a 40% unemployment rate had already caused widespread poverty.

 

11 April 1935

Italy, France and Britain meet to discuss German rearmament

The Stresa Conference was intended to form a united front against Adolf Hitler’s Germany, but Italian leader Benito Mussolini had more in common with Hitler than with the western democracies. On 2 October, he invaded Ethiopia. Despite public sanctions, in a secret agreement dubbed the Hoare-Laval Pact, France and Britain devised a partition plan which gave Italy two-thirds of Ethiopia.

 

7 June 1935

Conservative Stanley Baldwin becomes prime minister for the third time

Stanley Baldwin became prime minister after Ramsay Macdonald resigned due to ill health. The ‘power behind the throne’ during Macdonald’s premiership, Baldwin remained prime minister until 28 May 1937, when he was succeeded by Neville Chamberlain.

 

July 1935

First Penguin paperbacks go on sale, bringing literature to the masses

Publisher Allen Lane felt there was a need for cheap, easily available editions of quality contemporary writing. The first ten Penguins included works by Ernest Hemingway and Agatha Christie. They cost just sixpence, the same price as a packet of cigarettes, and were available in traditional bookshops, but also in railway stations and tobacconists. Three million Penguin paperbacks were sold within a year. It was a revolution in publishing that massively widened public access to literature.

 

20 January 1936

George V dies and is succeeded by Edward VIII

As Prince of Wales, Edward had visited many parts of the country hit by the prolonged economic depression. These visits, his apparently genuine concern for the underprivileged and his official overseas tours on behalf of his father made him popular in Britain and abroad. But his choice of bride would spark a constitutional crisis. He had fallen in love with a married American woman, Wallis Simpson. When she obtained a divorce in October 1936, it opened the way for her to marry Edward.

 

26 August 1936

Anglo-Egyptian Treaty ends the British protectorate of Egypt

Britain was reluctant to end its occupation of Egypt because the Suez Canal provided a vital sea route to India. The treaty allowed the British to retain control of the Suez Canal for the next 20 years, and for Britain to reoccupy the country in the event of any threat to British interests.

 

5 October 1936

Jarrow men march to London to highlight local poverty and unemployment

Poverty and mass unemployment (as high as 70%) in the north east of England drove 200 men from Jarrow, Tyne and Wear, to march 300 miles to London to deliver a petition to parliament asking for a steel works to replace the local shipyard that had recently closed down. The marchers attracted considerable public sympathy, but the crusade ultimately made little real impact. In heavy industry areas like the north east the Depression continued until the rearmament boom of World War Two.

 

10 December 1936

Edward VIII abdicates in order to marry Wallace Simpson

Edward VIII wished to marry American Wallis Simpson. Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin advised him that the British people would not accept her because she was a divorcee. Faced with losing the woman he loved, Edward chose instead to abdicate. On 11 December, he broadcast his decision to the nation. He married Wallace Simpson in France in June 1937. They became the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. Baldwin was widely credited with averting a constitutional crisis that could have ended the monarchy.

 

12 May 1937

George VI is crowned king

Edward VIII’s younger brother, the Duke of York, was crowned George VI. He and his wife Queen Elizabeth (later the Queen Mother), became inspirational figures for Britain during World War Two. The monarch visited his armies on several battle fronts and founded the George Cross for ‘acts of the greatest heroism or of the most conspicuous courage in circumstances of extreme danger’.

 

7 July 1937

Peel Commission recommends partitioning Palestine

The idea of partitioning Palestine between its Arab and Jewish inhabitants was rejected by both sides, and by January 1938 a new report had been commissioned. In 1939, a government white paper recommended that the final number of Jewish immigrants should be limited to 75,000, and Palestine should become independent under majority Arab rule. The outbreak of World War Two put the issue on hold.

 

29 December 1937

New constitution makes Ireland a republic in all but name

With the British government distracted by the constitutional crisis of Edward VIII’s abdication, Irish Free State leader Éamon De Valera seized the opportunity to draw up a new constitution for Ireland that omitted any references to its place within the British Empire. In addition to making Ireland a de facto republic, the constitution laid claim to the whole of Ireland, including Ulster. De Valera became the ‘Taoiseach’, the equivalent of prime minister.

12 February 1938

First refugee children of the ‘Kindertransport’ arrive in Britain

A total of 10,000 Jewish children between the ages of five and 17 were sent from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia to Britain between December 1938 and the outbreak of war in September 1939. Many were given homes by British families, or lived in hostels. Very few of them saw their parents again.

 

20 February 1938

Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden resigns over the ‘appeasement’ of Italy

With overt militarism on the rise across Europe, Britain persisted with its policy of ‘appeasement’ – making concessions to avoid provoking a wider scale war. Notably, Britain had not intervened in the brutal Spanish Civil War in order to avoid antagonising Italy. The decision of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain to recognise the king of Italy as emperor of Ethiopia following the Italians’ unprovoked invasion was a concession too far for Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, who resigned.

 

12 March 1938

Germany occupies and then annexes Austria in the ‘Anschluss’

The union of Austria and Germany was forbidden by the Treaty of Versailles. The treaty was deeply resented by both countries for its allocation of ‘war guilt’ and imposition of heavy reparations. When the German army marched into Austria in March 1938, they were welcomed by cheering crowds of Austrians.

 

28 – 30 September 1938

‘Munich Agreement’ cedes the Sudetenland to Germany

The Munich Conference between Britain’s Neville Chamberlain, Germany’s Adolf Hitler, Italy’s Benito Mussolini and Edouard Daladier of France agreed that the Czechoslovakian territory of the Sudetenland and its three million ethnic Germans should be joined with Germany. Chamberlain returned to Britain claiming he had achieved ‘peace in our time’. In fact, it would come to be a clear demonstration that appeasement did not work, as by March 1939 Hitler had seized the rest of Czechoslovakia.

 

31 March 1939

Britain guarantees territorial integrity of Poland

This guarantee formally ended the policy of appeasement, and the British government reluctantly began to prepare for war. Conscription was introduced for the first time in peacetime on 27 April, with little protest. On 23 August, the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact put paid to British hopes of a Russian ally. Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain warned Adolf Hitler that Britain would support Poland if it was attacked by Germany.

 

3 September 1939

Britain declares war on Germany in response to the invasion of Poland

On 1 September, German forces invaded Poland. Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain still hoped to avoid declaring war on Germany, but a threatened revolt in the cabinet and strong public feeling that Hitler should be confronted forced him to honour the Anglo-Polish Treaty. Britain was at war with Germany for the second time in 25 years.

 

9 April 1940

Germany mounts surprise invasions of Norway and Denmark

Germany invaded neighbouring Denmark on 7 April, and the Danes surrendered after two days. Denmark provided a land route to neutral Norway, which was invaded on 9 April. The small Norwegian army mounted fierce resistance, with the help of 12,000 British and French troops. The campaign in Norway ended when the German invasion of France and the Low Countries changed the focus of the war. The Allies were forced to evacuate.

 

10 May 1940

Winston Churchill becomes prime minister of the coalition government

Following the disastrous Norwegian campaign, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain faced heavy criticism at home. By early May, Chamberlain had lost the confidence of the House of Commons. Labour ministers refused to serve in a national coalition with Chamberlain as leader, so he resigned. Churchill became prime minister on 10 May, the same day Germany invaded Holland and Belgium.

 

10 May 1940

German invasion of the Low Countries and France begins

The German army rapidly defeated France with a strategy called ‘blitzkrieg’, or ‘lightning war’, which used speed, flexibility and surprise to execute huge outflanking manoeuvres. Paris fell on 14 June and France capitulated on 25 June. Hitler had achieved in a matter of weeks what the German army had failed to do after four years of desperate fighting on the Western Front of World War One.

 

26 May 1940

Thousands of Allied troops are evacuated from Dunkirk, France

Allied forces were utterly overwhelmed by the German ‘blitzkrieg’ in France. Thousands of soldiers were trapped in a shrinking pocket of territory centred around the French seaside town of Dunkirk. The Royal Navy’s Operation Dynamo succeeded in evacuating approximately 338,000 British and French troops in destroyers and hundreds of ‘little ships’ – volunteers who sailed to France in their own vessels – over a period of ten days, while under constant attack from the Luftwaffe (German air force).

 

30 June 1940

German forces occupy the Channel Islands

Britain had taken the decision not to defend the Channel Islands in the event of a German invasion. As German forces overran France in June 1940, about 30,000 people were evacuated from the islands, with about twice that number choosing to remain. Jersey and Guernsey were bombed on 28 June with the loss of 44 lives. The German occupation began two days later. The Channel Islands were the only part of the British Isles to be occupied during the war.

 

3 July 1940

French fleet in North Africa is destroyed by the Royal Navy

The attack on the French fleet at the Algerian port of Mers-el-Kébir left almost 1,300 Frenchmen dead and the fleet immobilised. Prime Minister Winston Churchill personally ordered the fleet destroyed if it refused to fight alongside British, following France’s capitulation to the Germans. Despite the cost in lives, Churchill could not allow the fleet to become a threat to British naval dominance in the Mediterranean.

 

13 August 1940

Battle of Britain begins with heavy raids by the German Luftwaffe

In July 1940, German leader Adolf Hitler ordered preparations for Operation Sealion – the invasion of Britain. The Luftwaffe (German air force) first had to destroy the Royal Air Force. Vastly outnumbered, the RAF nonetheless consistently inflicted heavy losses on the German squadrons, thanks to excellent aircraft, determined pilots and radar technology. On 17 September, two days after the Luftwaffe sustained its heaviest single day of losses, Hitler postponed the invasion.

 

2 September 1940

‘Destroyers for bases’ agreement gives Britain 50 US destroyers

In September 1940, US President Franklin Roosevelt signed an agreement to give Britain 50 obsolete American destroyers in exchange for the use of naval and air bases in eight British possessions. The lease was guaranteed for the duration of 99 years ‘free from all rent and charges’. Nonetheless, the US showed no sign yet of entering the war on the Allied side, as many in Britain hoped they would.

 

7 September 1940

‘Blitz’ begins with a massive daylight raid by the Luftwaffe

German bombing raids had already targeted Liverpool and Birmingham during August, but on 7 September the ‘Blitz’ intensified as 950 aircraft attacked London. It was the start of 57 consecutive nights of heavy bombing. The raid caused some 300 civilian deaths and a further 1,300 serious injuries. By the end of the Blitz, around 30,000 Londoners had been killed with another 50,000 injured.

 

15 April 1941

1,000 people are killed in the Belfast Blitz

No city, save London, suffered more loss of life in one night raid than Belfast, after 180 German bombers attacked the city. At the height of the raid an appeal was sent to the Irish leader Éamon De Valera, who sent fire engines to help fight the fires raging in the city.

 

20 May 1941

German troops invade Crete, driving the Allies out of the Eastern Mediterranean

German and Italian troops had overrun Greece in three weeks, starting on 6 April. Commonwealth troops were rushed there from Egypt to help the Greek resistance, but had to be evacuated. Many were sent to Crete in an effort to prevent the Axis powers dominating the eastern Mediterranean. Crete was attacked by the Germans on 20 May, and the Allied forces there were defeated and evacuated by the end of the month.

 

24 May 1941

HMS ‘Hood’ sunk by the German battleship ‘Bismarck’

The British battlecruiser ‘Hood’ was sunk during the Battle of Denmark Strait, probably by a single shell from the German battleship ‘Bismarck’. The ship sank so quickly that only three of the 1,418 man crew survived. ‘Hood’ was a well-known symbol of British imperial power and its loss was a significant psychological blow to Britain. The ‘Bismarck’ was itself sunk by the Royal Navy on 27 May 1941.

 

12 August 1941

Anglo-American alliance is sealed with the Atlantic Charter

The Atlantic Charter, agreed by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and US President Franklin Roosevelt, set out the principles that would shape the struggle against German aggression. It was drawn up during a secret meeting aboard the USS ‘Augusta’, off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada. The charter was supported by 26 countries, including the Soviet Union, and after the war formed the basis of the United Nations Declaration. America entered the war four months later.

 

26 January 1942

First American troops arrive in Europe, landing in Belfast

America entered the war on the Allied side in December 1941, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and subsequent German declaration of war on the United States. Millions of men and thousands of planes and tanks were deployed to Britain, which became a base for American airmen flying bombing raids over Europe, a staging post for American troops on their way to fight in North Africa, and crucially the launching point for the D-Day invasions that began the liberation of Western Europe.

 

15 February 1942

British colony of Singapore surrenders to Japanese forces

This catastrophic defeat was a fatal blow to British prestige and signalled the fall of the empire in the Far East. The Japanese unexpectedly attacked down the Malay Peninsula instead of from the sea, where Singapore’s defences were concentrated. About 70,000 men were taken prisoner, many of whom would not survive the war due to the brutal conditions of their incarceration.

 

11 March 1942

Sir Stafford Cripps goes to India to offer post-war self-government

Sir Richard Stafford Cripps was sent to India in March 1942 to win the co-operation of Indian political groups. The Japanese had occupied Burma, and were at the border of India. Stafford Cripps effectively offered post-war independence, which Mohandas Gandhi described as a ‘post-dated cheque on a crashing bank’. The Indian National Congress insisted on immediate independence, which Stafford Cripps refused. Gandhi launched a last civil disobedience campaign, for which he was imprisoned.

 

30 May 1942

Start of the RAF’s ‘thousand bomber raids’ on German cities

Air Marshall Arthur Harris took command of the Royal Air Force’s bomber force in February 1942. He wanted to demonstrate the effectiveness of Bomber Command with massive, concentrated raids (‘area bombing’) on key German cities. The first ‘thousand bomber raid’ was on Cologne, with a second, two nights later, on Essen. A third raid, this time on Bremen, took place on 25 June. The raids caused massive destruction, particularly in Cologne.

 

19 August 1942

‘Dieppe Raid’ ends in disaster for the Allies

The Allied attack on the German-occupied port of Dieppe, on the northern French coast, had a variety of purposes. It would raise morale at a time when the war was going badly, it would show the Soviets that the western Allies could open a second front, and it would teach valuable lessons for the eventual full-scale invasion of Europe. It was a disaster. Of the 6,000 mainly Canadian troops who made it ashore, more than 4,000 were killed, wounded or taken prisoner.

 

23 October – 4 November 1942

Decisive British victory over German forces at Battle of El Alamein, Egypt

General Claude Auchinleck had stopped the Axis forces (mainly German and Italian troops) during the First Battle of El Alamein in early July 1942, but the Allied position was still precarious. When General Bernard Montgomery took command of 8th Army, he built up its strength to a level of superiority before smashing the Axis forces in a carefully coordinated assault, driving them all the way back to Tunisia. By May 1943, the Axis had been completely cleared out of North Africa.

 

November 1942

‘Beveridge Report’ lays the foundations for the Welfare State

Sir William Beveridge’s report gave a summary of principles aimed at banishing poverty from Britain, including a system of social security that would be operated by the government, and would come into effect when war ended. Beveridge argued that the war gave Britain a unique opportunity to make revolutionary changes. Beveridge’s recommendations for the creation of a Welfare State were implemented by Clement Attlee after the war, including the creation of the National Health Service in 1948.

 

13 May 1943

Axis siege of the island of Malta is lifted

Malta’s position in the Mediterranean made it strategically vital for the Allies. It was effectively under siege from 1940 and suffered devastating Axis (Italian and German) bombing. From January to July 1942 there was only one 24-hour period when no bombs fell on the island. In summer 1942, George VI awarded the island of Malta the George Cross in acknowledgement of the bravery of its inhabitants. The siege was finally lifted when Axis forces capitulated in North Africa on 13 May 1943, .

 

16 May 1943

‘Dambusters Raid’ by the RAF breaches two dams in the Ruhr valley

This Royal Air Force raid by 19 Lancasters utilised a ‘bouncing bomb’, developed by British scientist Barnes Wallis, in an attempt to destroy three major dams supplying water and power to the important German industrial region of the Ruhr. Two of the dams were breached, but 53 of the 133 aircrew were killed. Severe flooding killed over 1,000 people, but the damage to the Ruhr’s industrial capability was relatively minor. Nonetheless, the raids were a major propaganda victory.

 

23 May 1943

Germany calls off the Battle of the Atlantic

Allied merchant shipping losses to German ‘U-boats’ in the Atlantic had reached crisis levels in late 1942 to early 1943. At the Casablanca Conference in January 1943, Allied leaders allocated more resources to the battle. In March 1943, after a ‘blackout’ of several months, German U-boat ciphers were once again broken, allowing the new resources to be deployed to devastating effect. By May 1943, U-boat losses were so heavy that Kriegsmarine commander Admiral Karl Dönitz called off the battle.

 

10 July 1943

First Allied troops land in Europe as invasion of Sicily begins

When British and American troops landed on the south eastern tip of Sicily, it was the first significant Allied landing on European soil in two years. After a prolonged battle, Axis forces started withdrawing from the island on 11 August. The island of Sicily gave the Allies a foothold for the invasion of mainland Italy, which began in September.

 

May 1944

Butler Act creates free secondary education

RA Butler, the progressive Conservative chancellor of the exchequer, created universal free secondary education to the age of 15, something people had campaigned for since the 19th century. There were three types of schools – grammar, secondary modern and technical, entrance to which was determined by the ’11 plus’ examination.

 

18 May 1944

Allies win the Battle of Monte Cassino after five months of fighting

The battle centred on the ancient Italian monastery of Monte Cassino. The Allies were attempting to break through the German ‘Gustav Line’, which ran across Italy, south of Rome. The Germans sought to halt the Allied advance north by holding them at Monte Cassino. The bitter fighting lasted over five months, during which the monastery was reduced to rubble. By the time the Allies broke through, casualties numbered more than 54,000 Allied and 20,000 Germans troops.

 

6 June 1944

Allied forces land in Normandy on D-Day, starting the liberation of France

The invasion of Europe – the largest amphibious invasion in history – succeeded in landing 150,000 troops on the beaches of Normandy on the first day, through a massive combined operation requiring hundreds of ships and total air superiority. Behind the lines, Allied paratroops seized key strategic targets, while the French resistance sabotaged rail and communication links. By the end of D-Day, five beachheads were secured, and the Allies had a foothold in France.

 

22 June 1944

Allies defeat the Japanese at the battles of Imphal and Kohima

Since the start of the Burma campaign in 1941, Allied forces had done little but retreat to the point that Japanese forces stood ready to invade north east India. When the command of 14th Army passed to Lieutenant General William Slim, he imbued it with a new fighting spirit and developed a strategy of air support that allowed besieged positions to hold out against Japanese assault. He used Kohima and Imphal to break the Japanese in Burma and by June 1945, 14th Army had retaken Rangoon.

25 September 1944

Allied forces are defeated at the Battle of Arnhem

Operation Market Garden was a bold plan to land 30,000 Allied troops behind enemy lines and capture eight bridges spanning a network of waterways on the Dutch-German border near Arnhem. It would allow the Allies to outflank German border defences, opening the way for an advance into Germany and an early end to the war. A combination of factors, including faulty intelligence about German strength and bad weather, resulted in failure. More than 1,130 Allied troops were killed and 6,000 captured.

 

4 February 1945

Allied leaders shape the post-war world at the Yalta Conference

The war leaders agreed that Germany should be forced to surrender unconditionally and would be divided into four zones between Britain, the Soviet Union, France and the United States. It was also agreed that the Soviet Union would enter the war against Japan after Germany was defeated.

 

15 April 1945

British troops liberate the concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen, Germany

The liberation of Bergen-Belsen brought the horrors of Nazi genocide home to the British public when film and photographs of the camp appeared in British newspapers and cinemas. Conditions at Bergen-Belsen were so desperate that more than 10,000 prisoners died in the weeks after the liberation of the camp, despite the best efforts of the Allies to keep them alive. Millions were murdered to satisfy Nazi theories about racial-biological purity, at least six million of whom were Jews.

 

8 May 1945

Britain celebrates the end of war on Victory in Europe Day

German forces had been utterly defeated by the end of April 1945. Adolf Hitler committed suicide on 30 April as Soviet forces closed in on his Berlin bunker. The German Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz surrendered to Allied General Dwight Eisenhower in France on 7 May. The following day was officially celebrated in Britain as Victory in Europe Day. The entire country came to a standstill as people celebrated the end of war.

 

26 July 1945

Labour wins the general election by a landslide

On 23 May the wartime coalition government ended. Winston Churchill headed a temporary Conservative government until the July general elections, which Labour won with a majority of 146. Returning soldiers wanted social reforms and had rejected the ‘war leader’ Churchill in favour of Labour’s Clement Attlee. The post-war years saw the implementation of many of the reforms recommended by Sir William Beveridge in 1942, and the creation of the Welfare State.

 

15 August 1945

Victory over Japan Day marks the end of World War Two

On 6 August, an atomic bomb was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima by the American bomber ‘Enola Gay’. Three days later, a second bomb was dropped on the port city of Nagasaki. In all, 140,000 people perished. Less than a week later, the Japanese leadership agreed to an unconditional surrender, and the Emperor Hirohito broadcast his nation’s the capitulation over the radio. Victory over Japan day also marked the end of World War Two.

 

24 October 1945

United Nations comes into existence with Britain as a founder member

At the Yalta Conference in early 1945, the ‘Big Three’ of Britain’s Winston Churchill, US President Franklin D Roosevelt and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin agreed to establish a new global organisation – the United Nations. The structure and charter of the organisation were established at another conference in San Francisco. Britain became one of the five ‘security council’ members, with a power of veto. On 24 October, the UN officially came into existence when its members ratified its charter.

 

1 January 1947

Britain’s coal industry is nationalised

The nationalisation of the coal industry represents a major shift in industrial policy. It allowed for the rationalisation of the coal industry, with the closure of many small pits, although the nationalised industry soon came to need state subsidies in order to delay further restructuring and closures.

 

15 August 1947

India gains independence from Britain

India was regarded as the most valuable British imperial possession. World War Two forced Britain to realise that it could not maintain a global empire and the British agreed to Indian self-government. However, they could not find a political solution that was acceptable to both Hindus and Muslims, and the country was partitioned into India and Pakistan. The British were unable to prevent the resulting inter-communal violence which resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths.

 

22 June 1948

Post-war immigration from the Commonwealth begins

The liner ‘SS Empire Windrush’ docked at Tilbury carrying nearly 500 Caribbean immigrants to Britain, many attracted by offers of work. This arrival represented the beginning of significant immigration to Britain from the Commonwealth, particularly the Caribbean, and later the Indian subcontinent.

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5 July 1948

National Health Service is established

The National Health Service, established by the post-war Labour government, represented a fundamental change in the provision of medical services. The General Practitioner (GP) service became organised on the basis of a ‘capitation fee’ paid by the government on every patient registered with a doctor. Voluntary and municipal hospitals were integrated under state control, exercised by the Ministry of Health.

25 July 1948

Berlin Airlift begins after Soviet forces blockade the city

In June 1948, the Soviet Union began a blockade of Berlin, which had been divided into occupation zones by the victorious Allies at the end of the war. They hoped to drive the western Allies out of Berlin. The following month, British and American aircraft began to airlift supplies to West Berliners. In total, there were more than 277,000 flights to deliver food, fuel and medicine. In May 1949, the Soviets backed down and lifted their blockade.

 

29 July 1948

Olympic Games open at Wembley Stadium in London

The so-called ‘Austerity Games’ were held in London while rationing was still in force in Britain. Fifty nine nations took part, but the defeated powers of Germany and Japan were excluded. London saw the first Olympic photo finish, in the 100 metres, and the introduction of starting blocks for sprinters. These were the first Games since Berlin in 1936. The 1940 Games went to Tokyo, then Stockholm, but were cancelled – as were the 1944 games – due to World War Two.

 

18 April 1949

Republic of Ireland comes into being

The Republic of Ireland Act (1948) came into force on Easter Monday, April 1949, ending vestigial British authority in Eire. Under the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, the British crown had retained some authority in the Irish Free State, although this was limited by the 1937 constitution. The 1948 Act repealed the External Relations Act and took Eire out of the Commonwealth.

 

8 June 1949

George Orwell’s novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ is published

Orwell’s novel was a bleak political account of the future, in which big government had created a destructive totalitarianism which denied both human values and the truth. The novel made a major impact – such that it contributed the phrase ‘Big Brother’ to the language – and was seen as an attack on the Soviet Union.

 

23 February 1950

Labour wins the general election with Clement Attlee returned as prime minister

Labour remained in government but its majority fell greatly, to only five seats, as the electorate’s enthusiasm for Labour’s post-war vision dwindled away.

 

29 August 1950

British troops arrive to support US forces in the Korean War

British troops were sent to help the US-led United Nations force repel the Communist invasion of South Korea by North Korea. The conflict set the pattern for the Cold War, with South Korea backed by the US and its allies, and North Korea backed by the Soviet Union and China. An armistice was agreed in July 1953 and Korea was partitioned. Approximately two million Korean civilians, 1.5 million Communist troops and 450,000 UN and South Korean troops were killed. No peace treaty was ever agreed.

 

3 May 1951

Festival of Britain is opened by George VI

The Festival sought to sustain a mood of post-war optimism and confidence – or at least interest – in new solutions. The site chosen for the Festival, on the South Bank of the Thames, London, had been extensively bombed in World War Two. The dominant artistic mood of the Festival was neo-Romantic, apt for the traditionalist 1950s, although the Royal Festival Hall itself was a Modernistic work.

 

23 October 1951

Conservatives under Winston Churchill win the general election

The Labour government fell as the Conservatives won a clear majority. Remarkably, Winston Churchill became prime minister again at the age of 76. He focused on foreign affairs, including reducing escalating Cold War tensions and maintaining the ‘special relationship’ with America, which he had done so much to develop during World War Two. Other foreign concerns included the Malayan emergency and the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya.

 

6 February 1952

Elizabeth II succeeds her father, George VI

Princess Elizabeth was in Kenya when news of her father’s death reached her. She immediately returned to Britain and was crowned on 2 June 1953. Elizabeth II proved an experienced and skilful adviser of successive prime ministers, but was careful to main constitutional conventions and not take a political stand publicly. Nonetheless, she held strong opinions, not least a belief in the Commonwealth. Under Elizabeth, members of the royal family maintained their important charitable role.

 

25 April 1953

Watson and Crick publish their discovery of the structure of DNA

Scientists James Watson and Francis Crick were the first to describe the structure of a chemical called deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, which makes up the genes that pass hereditary characteristics from parent to child. They received the 1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, which they shared with another DNA pioneer, Maurice Wilkins. A hugely important discovery, it has since formed the basis for a wide range of scientific advances.

 

5 April 1955

Winston Churchill retires as prime minister

Winston Churchill was by now 80 and his health was declining. He was succeeded as prime minister by Anthony Eden, who had also served as Churchill’s Foreign Secretary and was widely recognised as his ‘heir apparent’.

 

26 May 1955

Conservatives win the general election, with Sir Anthony Eden as prime minister

This Conservative victory, with 345 seats to Labour’s 277, strengthened the Conservatives’ parliamentary position.

 

22 September 1955

Commercial television starts with the first ITV broadcast

The monopoly of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) was broken when commercial television companies, financed by advertising, began broadcasting under the name of Independent Television (ITV) following the Television Act of 1954. The BBC started broadcasting a second channel, BBC Two, in 1964, and Channel 4 started broadcasting in 1982.

 

11 February 1956

‘Cambridge spies’ surface in Moscow after disappearing in 1951

Two British diplomats, Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean, were among five men recruited by the Soviet secret service, the KGB, at Cambridge University in the 1930s. The others were Harold (Kim) Philby, Anthony Blunt and John Cairncross. All had been involved in passing to the Soviets highly damaging military information, and the identities of British agents. Burgess and Maclean, who had fled Britain five years before, suddenly reappeared in the Soviet Union where they denied being spies.

 

8 May 1956

John Osborne’s play ‘Look Back in Anger’ is staged

The ‘Angry Young Men’ generation of writers rejected what they saw as Britain’s vulgar ‘materialist’ society, which they believed was disagreeable in itself and frustrating to them as individuals. Social values were lacerated by Osborne’s play and in the novels ‘Room at the Top’ (1957) by John Braine, ‘Saturday Night and Sunday Morning’ (1958) by Alan Sillitoe, and ‘This Sporting Life’ (1960) by David Storey.

 

5 July 1956

Worsening pollution prompts the passing of the Clean Air Act

The Clean Air Act was part of a general move towards a cleaner environment, directed in particular against the burning of coal in urban areas. The Act was in response to the severe London smog of 1952, which killed more than 4,000 people. Another Clean Air Act followed in 1968.

 

17 October 1956

Britain switches on its first nuclear power station

Calder Hall, Britain’s first nuclear power station – and the first in the world to supply substantial quantities of electricity to a national system – was opened by Elizabeth II.

 

5 November 1956

Britain and France invade Egypt after nationalisation of the Suez Canal

The Suez Crisis was sparked when Britain and France, allied with Israel, invaded Egypt over its decision to nationalise the Suez Canal – a vital waterway connecting the Mediterranean with the Red Sea. Under American pressure, the canal was handed back to Egypt and the invasion force was withdrawn. The crisis revealed Britain’s declining world status and its subordination to the US.

 

9 January 1957

Prime Minister Sir Anthony Eden resigns and is replaced by Harold Macmillan

The Suez Crisis of 1956 ruined Anthony Eden’s reputation and fatally compromised his political career. His health seriously diminished as a result. His successor, Harold Macmillan, had been chancellor of the exchequer under Eden. Macmillan was the third Conservative prime minister in as many years.

 

6 March 1957

Ghana becomes the first British colony in Africa to gain independence

The British colony of Gold Coast gained its independence, with Kwame Nkrumah as its first leader, following election victories for Nkrumah’s nationalist Convention People’s Party (CPP). The country was renamed Ghana in the declaration of independence. This event marked the beginning of rapid decolonisation in Africa.

 

15 May 1957

Britain tests its first hydrogen bomb

Following tests over Christmas Island in the Pacific Ocean, the government announced that Britain had joined the Soviet Union and the US as a nuclear power, with its own hydrogen bomb. The tests led to a debate in Britain about the dangers of nuclear weapons, and to the foundation in 1958 of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND).

 

5 December 1958

Motorway system opens with the M6 Preston bypass

The opening of the M6 Preston bypass by Prime Minister Harold Macmillan was the first stage in the motorway system. The following year, the M1 was punched through the Midlands from Watford to Birmingham. The developing motorway system encouraged a major rise in long-distance private and goods travel by road.

 

8 October 1959

Conservatives under Harold Macmillan win the general election

In a massive personal triumph for Harold Macmillan, the Conservatives won by 365 seats (and 49.3% of the vote) to 258 for Labour. The Conservative campaign slogan ‘you’ve never had it so good’ reflected the growing affluence of the electorate.

 

14 January 1963

France vetoes Britain’s entry to the European Common Market

President of France Charles de Gaulle announced the French veto on Britain’s application to join the European Common Market, the forerunner of the European Union. De Gaulle said the British government lacked ‘commitment’ to European integration.

 

October 1963

New universities open and students get state support

The Robbins Report on Higher Education (1963) was followed by the state-funded growth of universities. Government support was seen as necessary, not least in order to change the social composition of the student body. State-paid fees and maintenance were designed to help increase the percentage of working-class students. New universities were established, including Essex, Lancaster, Kent and Sussex.

 

19 October 1963

Conservative Sir Alec Douglas-Home becomes prime minister

Sir Alec Douglas-Home became Conservative party leader and prime minister following the resignation of Harold Macmillan on health grounds. He became the fourth Conservative prime minister since 1951. The preceeding three – Winston Churchill, Anthony Eden and Macmillan – all resigned for a variety of reasons.

 

1964

Abolition of Resale Price Maintenance prompts the rise of supermarkets

Resale Price Maintenance (RPM) obliged shops to sell goods at standard prices set by suppliers, and thus prevented the search for better business through undercutting. This helped small independent shopkeepers in their resistance to larger traders. Abolition of RPM opened the way to the rise of supermarkets and the transformation of the retail industry.

 

15 October 1964

Labour wins the general election, with Harold Wilson as prime minister

Labour, under Harold Wilson, narrowly won the general election, by 317 seats to 304 for the Conservatives. Considered something of an intellectual, Wilson successfully contrasted his ‘meritocratic’ beliefs against his ‘establishment’ opponent, Conservative Alec Douglas-Home.

 

12 July 1965

Comprehensive education system is initiated

Circular 10/65′, issued by the Labour government’s education secretary, Anthony Crosland, obliged local education authorities to draw up plans for replacing the existing division between ‘grammar’ and ‘secondary modern’ schools in order to create all-inclusive ‘comprehensive’ schools. It represented the first step towards a comprehensive education system that served all pupils on an equal basis.

 

8 November 1965

Death penalty is abolished

The abolition of the death penalty for murder – one of the few remaining crimes for which capital punishment could still be handed down – effectively meant the final abolition of the death penalty. This was a major symbolic act in the reduction of the power of the state. The death sentence for treason and piracy with violence remained on the statue books until 1998 when they were abolished by the Crime and Disorder Act.

 

31 March 1966

Labour strengthens its parliamentary position in the general election

Labour’s share of the vote went up from 44.1% in the 1964 general election to 48%, and the Conservatives down from 43.4 to 41.9. The shift in seats, from 317 to 364, compared with 304 to 253, was more dramatic, leaving Harold Wilson, the Labour prime minister, with a much-improved majority of nearly 100.

30 July 1966

England win the football World Cup

England defeated West Germany in the World Cup final, which was held at Wembley and watched by 93,000 people in the stadium and 400 million people around the world on television. Geoff Hurst became the first – and thusfar only – player to score a hat-trick in a World Cup final when he powered home his third goal in the final moments of extra time, giving England a decisive 4-2 victory.

 

1967

Abortion and homosexuality are legalised

A number of Acts of Parliament in this period reflected the changing social climate. As well as the 1967 Sexual Offences Act, which legalised homosexuality between men over 21, and the 1967 Abortion Act which legalised abortion under certain conditions, there was also the 1969 Divorce Reform Act and the 1970 Equal Pay Act.

 

1 June 1967

Beatles release ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’

This was the Beatles’ eighth album, and is widely recongnised as one of the most influential records ever released. The album was heavily influenced by the group’s increasing use of drugs, and enjoyed immediate critical and popular success at the start of the ‘psychedelic era’. Peter Blake’s collage for the album cover has become iconic.

 

2 March 1969

Concorde, the world’s first supersonic airliner, makes its maiden flight

The first supersonic (above the speed of sound) airliner was developed jointly by Britain and France. It did not begin commercial flights until 1976. The fleet was grounded in 2000 after Concorde’s first and only major fatal accident in July of that year. Concorde was finally retired in 2003.

 

18 June 1970

Conservatives win the general election, with Edward Heath as prime minister

The Conservatives won the general election by 330 seats to 287 for Labour. This unexpected result appears to have reflected doubts about Labour’s economic management, a view focused by a poor set of trade figures. The failure of Labour to motivate its own supporters was also important. Evidence suggested that voters had turned against Harold Wilson, rather than towards the uncharismatic Edward Heath.

 

6 February 1971

First British soldier is killed in Northern Ireland’s ‘Troubles’

The first British soldier, Gunner Robert Curtis (aged 20), was killed in Northern Ireland’s ‘Troubles’ by the self-styled ‘Irish Republican Army’ (IRA). He was shot while on foot patrol in North Belfast. British troops had been sent to Northern Ireland in 1969 in a ‘limited operation’ to restore law and order.

 

15 February 1971

Decimalised currency replaces ‘pounds, shillings and pence’

The old sterling denominations of pounds, shillings and pennies were phased out over a period of 18 months, and replaced with decimal pounds and pennies. The decimalisation of the pound came to be blamed for an increase in inflation.

 

20 August 1971

North Sea oil concessions are auctioned

The discovery of oil under the North Sea was a major boost to British public finances. Drilling and exploration concessions were auctioned to maximise government income, and the first oil was piped ashore at Teesside in 1975. Full scale exploitation of the fields would not begin until the 1980s, when rising oil prices made it economically viable.

 

30 January 1972

British army kills 14 in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, on Bloody Sunday

British troops opened fire on a crowd of civil rights protestors in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, killing 13 civilians and injuring a further 17. The crowd of between 7,000 and 10,000 people had been marching in protest at the policy of detention without trial. The sequence of events on ‘Bloody Sunday’ remains highly controversial, with accusations that senior IRA figures were present on the day and shot at British troops.

 

4 August 1972

Idi Amin expels Uganda’s Asians and many settle in Britain

On 4 August, Ugandan President Idi Amin gave his country’s Asian population just 90 days to leave, claiming god had told him to do it in a dream. Over half of the 55,000 Asians expelled from Uganda came to Britain and many settled permanently. Their resettlement came to be viewed as a success story. In 1991, President of Uganda Yoweri Museveni invited them to ‘return home’ to help the Ugandan economy.

 

1 January 1973

Britain joins the European Economic Community

Britain, Ireland and Denmark joined the European Economic Community (EEC), bringing the total number of member states to nine. The three countries, together with Norway, signed an accession treaty in 1972, but Norwegians rejected the treaty in a referendum. Britain held a referendum on the matter in 1975, after renegotiating its terms of entry, and 67% voted in favour of staying in the EEC.

 

28 February 1974

Election ends in a ‘hung parliament’ with Harold Wilson as prime minister

The Conservatives won more votes than Labour (37.9% of the popular vote to 37.1%), but Labour won more seats (301 to 297). Neither party had achieved an outright majority, resulting in a ‘hung parliament’. The Liberals, with 19.3% and 14 seats, held the balance of power. Edward Heath initially held on to office in the hope of persuading the Liberals to enter into a coalition, but the Liberals rejected this idea and Harold Wilson returned to head a minority administration.

 

10 October 1974

Labour wins a tiny majority in the election with Harold Wilson as prime minister

In order to tackle his party’s minority status following the ‘hung parliament’ produced by the general election of February 1974, Harold Wilson called a new election, which he won with a small overall majority. Labour’s percentage of the vote went up from 37.1 to 39.2, while Conservative percentage fell from 37.9 to 35.8.

 

16 March 1976

Prime Minister Harold Wilson resigns and is replaced by James Callaghan

Harold Wilson’s resignation after 13 years as Labour leader and nearly eight as prime minister was completely unexpected, and has never been properly explained. It was probably related to his awareness of the early onset of Alzheimer’s disease and a feeling that he was losing control. On 5 April, James Callaghan was elected Labour Party leader and became the new prime minister.

 

September 1976

Britain is forced to borrow money from the International Monetary Fund

A crisis in sterling forced the Labour government to turn to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), making Britain the first major Western state to be forced into this humiliating course of action. In return for the loan, the IMF demanded cuts in government spending. After a political battle within the British government, the IMF terms were accepted and imposed in December.

 

25 July 1978

World’s first test-tube baby is born in Oldham

Louise Brown, the first ‘test-tube baby’, was a success for ‘in vitro’ fertilisation (IVF), a method by which egg and sperm are mixed in a glass dish, and the embryos inserted into the womb. By the end of the 20th century, about 1,400 IVF babies were being born each year.

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Winter 1978/79

Strikes paralyse Britain during the so-called ‘Winter of Discontent’

Industrial action by petrol tanker and lorry drivers was followed by hospital ancillary staff, ambulance men and dustmen going on strike. Hospitals were picketed, the dead left unburied, and troops called in to control rats swarming around heaps of uncollected rubbish. The large number of simultaneous strikes, the violence and perceived mean-mindedness of the picketing (which included the turning away of ambulances) created a sense of alarm in the electorate about the decline of British society.

 

1 March 1979

Scotland and Wales reject devolution

The referenda required the support of 40% of the electorate, not simply the majority of votes. This was not obtained in Scotland, although the majority of votes were in favour of devolution. Devolution was heavily defeated in Wales. As a result of the referenda, the Scottish Nationalists joined the Conservatives and Liberals in passing a vote of no confidence in the government, and Labour lost control of the House of Commons – a bad prelude to the general election.

 

3 May 1979

Conservative Margaret Thatcher becomes Britain’s first female prime minister

Margaret Thatcher, party leader since 1975, became Britain’s first female prime minister with a majority of 43 seats. The Conservatives won 43.9% of the votes and 339 seats, Labour 36.9% and 269 seats, and Liberals 13.8%. She came to power on the promise that the Conservatives would cut income tax, reduce public expenditure, make it easier for people to buy their own homes and curb the power of the unions.

 

27 August 1979

IRA kill the Queen’s cousin Lord Mountbatten

Elizabeth II’s cousin, Lord Louis Mountbatten, one of his teenage grandsons and two others were killed by a bomb on his boat at Mullaghmore in county Sligo, Ireland. On the same day the IRA also killed 18 soldiers at Warrenpoint in County Down.

 

11 April 1981

Racial tensions spark riots in Brixton and other areas

Serious rioting in Brixton following the arrest of a local black man marked the start of violent unrest across England. In London’s Southall, Toxteth in Liverpool, Moss Side in Manchester, and to a lesser extent other centres such as Derby, crowds rioted, looted, and fought the police. Many of the riots reflected specific local problems, especially poor relations between predominantly black communities and the police.

 

24 June 1981

Humber Bridge opens, the longest single-span bridge in the world

The Humber Bridge was built between 1972 and 1980. At the time, it was the longest single-span bridge in the world at nearly 2,200m.

 

3 October 1981

Hunger strike by Republican prisoners ends after ten deaths

Republican prisoners at the Maze prison near Belfast had begun their hunger strike over the right to be treated as political prisoners rather than criminals. A first strike, begun in late 1980, was called off with no deaths. But failure to secure concessions resulted in a second, led by Bobby Sands. It began in March 1981. The British government refused to concede. Ten men, including Sands, starved themselves to death, while 61 people were killed outside the prison in related violence.

 

26 January 1982

Economic recession leads to high unemployment

Unemployment breached the psychologically significant barrier of three million as manufacturing was hard hit by a deep economic recession.

 

2 April 1982

Argentina invades the British territory of the Falkland Islands

Three days after the invasion, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher sent a naval task force to liberate the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic. The subsequent conflict cost the lives of 655 Argentine and 255 British servicemen, many of them sailors who died during attacks on Royal Navy warships. The conflict ended on 14 June when the commander of the Argentine garrison at Port Stanley surrendered to British troops.

 

10 June 1983

Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher is re-elected by a landslide

The Conservatives were re-elected with 379 seats and an enormous majority of 144 seats. Labour’s share crashed to 209 seats. The Social Democratic-Liberal ‘Alliance’ won 23 seats. The Conservatives benefited from division among their opponents and doubts about Labour’s competence on the economy and defence. Thatcher’s government used its majority to embark on a radical programme of privatisation and deregulation, trade union reform and tax cuts.

 

12 March 1984

12-month ‘Miners’ Strike’ over pit closures begins

A local strike on 5 March over a threatened pit closure in Yorkshire had, within a week, broadened into a national miners’ strike. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher pitted her personal authority against that of the militant socialist president of the National Union of Mineworkers, Arthur Scargill. There were violent clashes between striking miners and policemen. The strike failed and was called off after a year, allowing the pit closures to go ahead. The strike left a legacy of deep bitterness.

 

12 October 1984

IRA bombers strike at the Conservative conference in Brighton

The bombing by Irish Republican Army terrorists of the Grand Hotel Brighton during the Conservative Party conference killed five and left more than 30 injured. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher narrowly escaped the blast. It was the closest the IRA had come to killing a British prime minister.

 

8 December 1986

Major national industries are privatised

The privatisation of British Gas was a major step in the Conservative government’s policy of privatisation. It paved the way for the privatisation of British Aerospace, Cable and Wireless, Britoil, the National Bus Company, British Airways, Rolls Royce, British Steel, British Telecom, the electricity-generating industry and the water companies. These sales cut government expenditure, by bringing in large sums of money and by reducing the need for state subsidies.

 

11 June 1987

Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher wins a third term

Margaret Thatcher was re-elected for an historic third term, with an overall majority of 101 – less than in 1983, but still significant. The Conservatives had 376 seats (42.3 % of the vote), Labour 229 (30.8%) and Alliance 22 (22.5%). It paved the way for Thatcher to become the longest serving prime minister for more than 150 years. Signs of a Labour recovery appeared in Scotland, where they won 50 of the 72 seats.

 

1989

Tim Berners-Lee invents the World Wide Web

In 1989, while working at CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory in Switzerland, Tim Berners-Lee came up with the idea of the World Wide Web, a new way of using existing internet technology to share information. He wrote the first web browser the following year, and went on to found the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) in 1994.

 

31 March 1990

Introduction of new local taxes sparks ‘poll tax’ riots in London

The Conservative plans for a ‘poll tax’, introduced in England and Wales on 1 April 1990, provoked vocal opposition across Britain in the form of anti-poll tax rallies and acts of civil disobedience. A largely peaceful march in London, attended by 70,000 people, degenerated into serious rioting centred on Trafalgar Square. The unpopularity of the tax contributed to the downfall of Margaret Thatcher. Her successor John Major replaced the poll tax with the council tax.

 

22 November 1990

Margaret Thatcher resigns and John Major becomes prime minister

Faced by large-scale opposition within her own parliamentary party, Margaret Thatcher, who was widely seen as remote and autocratic, resigned as prime minister and leader of the Conservative Party. The crisis of confidence in her leadership had been sparked by her attitude to Europe, while her support for the so-called ‘poll tax’ had undermined her standing with the electorate. Five days later, John Major succeeded her as party leader and prime minister.

 

17 January 1991

Liberation of Kuwait begins as Allies launch Operation Desert Storm

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein ordered the invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 and refused to withdraw. Following a massive military build up, US-led forces backed by a United Nations mandate launched ‘Operation Desert Storm’ to liberate Kuwait. A huge aerial bombardment preceded the ground attack on 24 February. The Iraqi army fell into headlong retreat and on 27 February, US President George Bush declared that Kuwait had been liberated. Saddam Hussein remained in power in Iraq.

 

9 April 1992

Conservatives win the general election, returning John Major as prime minister

A poor Labour campaign by leader Neil Kinnock squandered significant support for the opposition and helped Conservative John Major to a surprise general election victory, with a slim overall majority of 21. The Conservatives won 326 seats, Labour 271.

 

6 May 1992

Channel Tunnel opens, linking London and Paris by rail

The Channel Tunnel provided an unprecedented rail link between London and Paris, something that had been planned for over a century. The tunnel became the longest undersea tunnel in the world, measuring 50km in total, with 39km of it under the sea. Three tunnels – two for trains and one for service – lie an average of 40m below the sea bed.

 

16 September 1992

‘Black Wednesday’ forces withdrawal of sterling from the ERM

Sterling, under strong financial pressure from speculation on the money markets, was pulled out of the European Union’s Exchange Rate Mechanism. This was a major blow to the Conservatives’ reputation for economic competence, but it relieved pressure on Britain’s economy by ensuring that the currency could float independently.

 

1994

First women priests are ordained by the Church of England

The decision to ordain women to the priesthood in the Church of England was taken in 1992 and implemented in 1994. It was a controversial step, welcomed by most of the church but rejected by traditionalists, some of whom joined the Catholic Church in protest.

 

1 May 1997

Labour wins the general election, with Tony Blair as prime minister

Tony Blair had become leader of the Labour Party in 1994 after the sudden death of John Smith. Blair continued the modernisation of the party begun by Smith. Voters responded to ‘New Labour’ in the 1997 election, giving the party a huge majority of 179 seats. One of the new Labour government’s first acts was to give the Bank of England control of interest rates. It also embarked on a programme of far-reaching constitutional reform.

 

1 July 1997

Britain hands Hong Kong back to China

After more than 150 years of British rule, Hong Kong was returned to Chinese control. Britain had held the New Territories north of Hong Kong under a 99-year lease that expired in 1997, requiring the ‘handing back’ of the colony to China. Under the ‘One Country, Two Systems’ policy, Hong Kong retained its own legal system, currency, customs policy and immigration laws for a minimum 50 years after the handover.

 

31 August 1997

Diana, Princess of Wales, dies in a car crash in Paris

Diana was the ex-wife of the heir to the British throne, Charles, Prince of Wales. A controversial figure in life, Diana’s death in a car crash in Paris provoked widespread public mourning. On 6 September, one million people lined the streets of London for her funeral. It was later discovered that the driver of the car in which he, Diana and her friend Dodi Al Fayed were killed had more than the legal limit of alcohol in his blood and was travelling at over 100mph.

 

September 1997

Scotland and Wales vote in favour of devolution

In two referenda, a large majority in Scotland (74.9% of those who voted), and a smaller one in Wales (50.3%), provided the basis for the creation of national assemblies with legislative powers. The assemblies first met in 1999, with the Scottish Parliament, but not the Welsh Assembly, gaining tax-varying powers.

 

10 April 1998

Good Friday Agreement establishes a devolved Northern Irish assembly

An agreement between Northern Ireland’s nationalists and unionists was reached after 30 years of conflict, as a result British government negotiations and US pressure on Sinn Féin, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army. It set out plans for devolved government and provided for the early release of terrorist prisoners and the decommissioning of paramilitary weapons. Referenda in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland endorsed the agreement on 22 May. The assembly met on 1 July.

 

1 January 1999

Britain decides not to join the European Single Currency

Widespread British unease about the European single currency obliged Prime Minister Tony Blair, who was keen on the project, to stay out. The ‘euro’ was launched as an electronic currency used by banks, foreign exchange dealers, big firms and stock markets in 1999. Euro coins first hit the streets of the 12 ‘eurozone’ countries on 1 January 2002.

 

1 January 2000

Britain celebrates the new millennium

There were widespread celebrations of the new millennium and relief that the ‘millennium bug’, which had been predicted to cause global computer meltdown, failed to materialise. Elizabeth II and Prime Minister Tony Blair joined a party at the ill-starred Millennium Dome in Greenwich, east London. The controversial dome was considered a massive flop and only stayed open until December 2000.

 

March 2000

Global stock markets tumble as the ‘dotcom bubble’ bursts

The late 1990s saw a profusion of start-up companies selling products or services either using or related to the internet. There was a speculative frenzy of investment in these ‘dotcom’ companies, much of it by small investors. The bursting of the ‘dotcom bubble’ saw the collapse of many of these companies and marked the beginning of a mild yet lengthy recession.

 

2001

Foot-and-mouth disease wreaks havoc on rural Britain

The nine-month epidemic of ‘foot-and-mouth’ disease resulted in the culling of millions of animals and devastated large sections of the rural economy. The crisis brought the countryside to a virtual standstill and the cost to British farming was put between £800 million and £2.4 billion. The Labour government was heavily criticised for its handling of the crisis.

 

7 June 2001

Labour wins the general election, with Tony Blair returned as prime minister

Labour won a commanding majority of 167 seats. Prime Minister Tony Blair’s second term came to be dominated by controversial foreign policy issues, mainly the ‘war on terror’ begun after the terror attacks in the United States on 11 September. The Conservative leader, William Hague, resigned after the party showed little sign of electoral recovery.

 

11 September 2001

Islamic terrorists crash aircraft on targets in New York and Washington

Nineteen mainly Saudi Arabian terrorists used hijacked planes to destroy the twin towers of the World Trade Centre in New York and part of the Pentagon building in Washington. A fourth plane crashed in Pennsylvania, killing all on board. Among the approximately 3,000 people killed in the attacks were 67 Britons. In response, US President George W Bush declared a worldwide ‘war on terror’.

 

7 October 2001

Britain joins the US in strikes on Taleban-controlled Afghanistan

British forces contributed to the initial US military strikes against the Islamic fundamentalist Taleban regime in Afghanistan – the first retaliation to the terrorist attacks of ‘9/11’. The Taleban, who had allowed the terrorist organisation al-Qaeda to use Afghanistan as a base, was overthrown and replaced with a US-backed administration. Coalition forces, including British troops, remain in Afghanistan. Osama Bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader responsible for the ‘9/11’ attacks, was not found.

 

20 March 2003

Britain joins the US in an invasion of Iraq

Despite significant opposition at home, the British government gave military support to the controversial United States-led invasion of Iraq. Crucially, the action was not backed by a United Nations mandate, sparking debate over the legality of the invasion. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was overthrown and captured. Iraq now has a democratically elected government, but the country remains deeply unstable as a result of the deliberate stoking of sectarian tensions by terrorist groups.

 

1 May 2004

Ten new states join the European Union

Ten new states from eastern and southern Europe joined the European Union, making it the largest trading bloc in the world by population. Their inclusion sparked fears, stoked by lurid media stories, of a huge influx of ‘economic migrants’ from the poorer eastern countries to the wealthier western countries such as Britain.

 

16 February 2005

Kyoto Protocol on measures to control climate change comes into force

The agreement required countries to cut emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by 5.2% by 2012. The treaty was signed by 141 countries but the world’s largest economy – and largest polluter – the United States, did not ratify it. Climate scientists argued that the 5.2% target was far too low, and a 60% cut was needed to make an impact on climate change caused by human activity.

 

5 May 2005

Labour wins a third consecutive term with Tony Blair as prime minister

Labour won, but with a substantially reduced majority. Tony Blair joined Margaret Thatcher as the only post-war prime ministers to have won three successive general elections. Nonetheless, he quickly announced his intention not to stand for a fourth term, sparking ongoing speculation about when he would hand over to his annointed successor, Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown. Conservative leader Michael Howard resigned to make way for a younger leader.

 

7 July 2005

Suicide bombers kill 52 people on London’s transport system

Three men blew themselves up on London Underground trains, while a fourth exploded his bomb on a double-decker bus. Fifty two people were killed and more than 700 injured. On 21 July there were four more attempted suicide bombings in London, but none of the devices exploded. Islamic terrorist organisation Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility, but it is thought that the bombers, all British Muslims, acted alone.

December 2005

Civil partnerships give same-sex couples legal rights

Civil partnerships between same-sex couples were introduced in the 2004 Civil Partnership Act and came into law in December 2005. Partnered couples gained the same legal rights as married couples and were permitted to hold wedding-style ‘civil union’ ceremonies.

(C) the British History Timeline

2005 7 July – 52 people are killed and around 700 are injured in four Islamist suicide bomb attacks on London’s transport network. Two weeks later, more would-be bombers fail to detonate four devices on same network.

July attacks

Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES

July 2005: Suicide bombers killed 52 people, injured hundreds

2005 July – Irish Republican Army (IRA) announces formal end to its armed campaign.

2007 May – Leaders of Northern Ireland Assembly sworn in, ending five years of direct rule from London.

Pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP) becomes the largest party in the Scottish Parliament following elections.

2007 June – Gordon Brown succeeds Tony Blair as prime minister and Labour leader.

2007 July – Diplomatic row with Russia over Britain’s bid to extradite Andrei Lugovoi, an ex-KGB agent accused of killing Russian defector Alexander Litvinenko in London with radioactive polonium.

Financial crisis

2008 October – The government part-nationalises three leading UK banks with a 37 billion pound rescue package. It also pumps billions into the UK financial system after record stock market falls precipitated by the global “credit crunch”.

Financial crisis

Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES

The financial crisis which began in 2008 plunged the UK into a deep and long recession

2009 November – Britain withdraws bulk of its remaining troops in southern Iraq, leaving only a small force tasked with training the Iraqi military.

The UK economy comes out of recession, after figures show it grew by 0.1% in the last quarter of 2009, following six consecutive quarters of economic contraction – the longest such period since quarterly figures were first recorded in 1955.

Coalition government

2010 May – General election: Conservative Party wins most seats but fails to gain an absolute majority. Conservative leader David Cameron heads first post-war coalition with the third-placed Liberal Democrats.

2010 October – Coalition announces large-scale public spending cuts aimed at reducing UK’s budget deficit, with an average 19% four-year cut in budgets of government departments.

2011 March-September – Britain plays a prominent part in the international intervention in the conflict in Libya.

Image copyrightAFP

Image captionThe 2012 London Olympics were seen as a fillip in a time of economic gloom

2011 May – Referendum rejects plan to replace first-past-the-post electoral system for House of Commons with alternative vote proportional system. 2011 August – The killing of a 29-year old man by police sparks widespread riots and looting in poorer areas of London, as well as in several other English cities. Insurers estimate the cost of the damage at more than £200m.

2011 December – Prime Minister David Cameron blocks proposed changes to the EU’s Lisbon Treaty aimed at addressing the crisis in the eurozone, over threats to the independence of the City of London as a financial centre.

2012 August-September – Britain hosts the 2012 Summer Olympics and Paralympics to widespread international acclaim.

Scottish, EU referendums

2012 October – British and Scottish governments agree on terms for a Scottish referendum on independence in autumn 2014.

2013 January – Prime Minister David Cameron proposes a referendum on whether to leave the European Union after the next election.

2013 May – A soldier, Drummer Lee Rigby, is hacked to death in south London by two Islamic extremists.

2013 July – The Duchess of Cambridge gives birth to a son George, who is third in line to the throne after the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Cambridge.

2013 August – The House of Commons votes to block UK military involvement in Syria in a political embarrassment for the government.

2014 May – Support for the anti-EU UK Independence Party (UKIP) surges in local and European elections. 2014 September – Voters in a referendum in Scotland reject independence, with 55% opting to remain part of the United Kingdom and 45% favouring independence.

2015 May – Conservative Party confounds polls by winning majority in general election for first time since 1992. Liberal Democrat coalition partners lose all but eight seats. UK Independence Party wins nearly four million votes, but retains only one of two seats won at by-elections.

Scottish National Party wins all but three seats in Scotland, becoming third largest party in parliament and dealing heavy blow to opposition Labour Party.

2016 June – Political crisis after voters in a referendum opt to quit the European Union. David Cameron resigns, succeeded as prime minister by his home secretary, Theresa May.

2017 January – Supreme Court rules that the government must seek parliamentary approval before invoking Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty to begin the process of leaving the European Union.

(C)http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18028620

 Can you imagine living through so much history?I can`t remember how old I actually was when I first met her or whereabouts in the school, we were, nor was to have no idea how important she was to become to me or how much she would teach me about being a better person.

  I can`t remember how old I actually was when I first met her or whereabouts in the school, we were, nor was I to have no idea how important she was to become to me or how much she would teach me about being a better person.

  From a very young age, I remember her home. Stepping into the toy room with the Beatles poster on the wall, long before I actually knew who they were. Toys that fascinated me and my love of Sonny the Spaniel, so warm, so soft and so gentle. She gave me my first watermelon, something I still love to this day and I still think of her whenever I have one. Tea in a garden bigger than I’d ever seen, where I was allowed to go on the swing on my own and wander as though I was in the countryside. (Our garden at home was overlooked from all sides on a London overflow council estate.) She enforced my love of dogs as Ben and Daniel the whippets followed Sonny, with strict rules of never feeding them titbits from the table.

   Without Sylvia, I would never have gone to the zoo, where I rode on a camel,  a boat trip down the Thames at Henley, and the cinema where we saw `Swallows and Amazons,` `Digby the biggest dog in the world,` amongst many as years went by and as I got older. So many places, adventures, and so many wonderful memories.

 Her home fascinated me with its old history, it even still had the servants bells on the wall.

 When she moved home she told me that I was one of the first to see it, it was beautiful, especially the garden in which she took so much pride. I have great memories of chatting in her kitchen in my teens, where the underfloor heating was something I never knew existed!

   I had a family nearby, both in the next two adjoining streets that overlooked our rear garden, all had cars, but I was never taken out by them, and I was the only one that wasn`t taken on holiday each year. Knowing that my brother was taken away with all of my cousins but not me broke my heart every year, especially as my cousins were my only playmates outside of school.  She seemed to understand and wondered why I was never taken anywhere when they had cars but she never judged them, only took me out and about instead and she became like family instead.

 As I grew and went from school to college in Exeter, we stayed in touch, though I’m sure as a typical teen there would have been times I lapsed and she`d write to remind me, which she would in letters.

  From College I moved to West Sussex where I wrote poetry and sent her the book I had published with a friend, It meant a great deal when she was so proud and cherished the copy.

 The letters flew thick and fast over the decades, together with cards on celebrations and photographs. We shared news, family lives, and achievements and our families became entwined. She told me of her sadness at losing her daughter to cancer, especially as her daughter was a Dr and knew the symptoms and so on.  She then lost her beloved Husband whom I knew as a quiet, strong man with a kind smile. (Who also had been my optician)  She`d tell me how she always missed them both still.  When I had my Son in 1993 she was one of the people I most wanted him to meet, and her him, and she did with the same smile and kindness I knew so well, and she was there at his first birthday party.  I cherish the picture of them together and her kind words in a returning letter about him.,

  I smiled when I sent her a picture of our Lurcher Megan, as she replied in her next letter of her envy as she missed having whippets and Lurchers in her older years.

   She was a strong woman, she was a prison visitor who would sit with the children while their Mums went into to visit. Into her eighties, she still did the Poppy collections.

  As time marched on and the letters became fewer and finally stopped, I regretted being unable to travel to see her, but the memories of her are as vivid today, together with the lessons she taught me over the years.

                                                                                 I quite simply loved her.

Life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings. Jane Austen.

Again it`s been a while since I added to my blog as life is sweeping me along and finding time to fit everything in and look after myself can be difficult.

I met up with family at the new year they came to stay, it was busy and fun, and a great way to bring in the New year!. I`ve known my sort of sister since she was about ten or eleven. She was a typical tomboy that played football in the streets with her dog, and could hold her own in a fight but wasn`t having the best start in life at home. Today she is raising a girlie girl that loves sparkly things and being pretty; like her Mum though I doubt she`d take any nonsense! She`s also raising a sweet natured, kind little boy that has a smile that makes you melt. She works hard, has goals and she`s  an amazing Mum with amazing kids and I`m so proud of her as she has come so far despite the challenges.

February took me and a friend on a trip to West Sussex. There had been a number of emails and calls between myself and Canine Partners in the weeks leading up to it and then finally, THAT call: `We think we`ve found the right dog for you!`

MMy trip to Sussex was quite an adventure too as it happens! Bless my friend for taking me and quite brave of her too but there was a host of things she had failed to tell me, such as, she hasn`t driven far in many years, she doesn`t use a sat nav, she can only drive manual and that when booking the WAV she hadn`t really spoken with them about the vehicle she had volunteered to drive or that when she volunteered she had hoped that my other friend would be back by then to drive me instead, lol

 She had arranged with the vehicle hire to have the car dropped off at mine at 2 pm, (She hoped to miss the traffic in London) The vehicle arrived at 1 pm but she was still at home an hour away. The vehicle was HUGE, the sort I hated at `special` school.  They had thought two wheelchairs meant two disabled people in two wheelchairs. When my friend finally arrived the two gentlemen spent ages showing her how to strap and unstrap the wheelchair into this monstrosity but NOT how to drive it! They had gone by the time we started to set off after 3 and my friend didn`t know how to drive it at all as it was automatic. So my brother in law was telling her on the phone from work and my Sister was texting or calling too! When we finally set off I could see that my friend was anxious (Something about her white knuckles on the steering wheel was a bit of a giveaway, lol) and stressed. She mistook the pedal a few times and slammed on the break, it was a very good job that myself and the wheelchairs were strapped in as we got thrown forward with a jolt.  She also stalled more than once which was a bit frightening especially on a busy road.

 She had all these printed out directions that her hubby had done for her, and there I was sitting in the back of the van in my electric wheelchair with my mobile torch directing her, which got increasingly difficult as it got darker.

 We got to Chelmsford and we had to ring the hire people and tell them that she could no longer drive the minibus. By this time I think we were both too scared to carry on. My friend was obviously terrified driving something so out of her comfort zone and I was increasingly anxious at the fact she looked and sounded so anxious and was making so many mistakes. The hire company very kindly worked out a way forward and then offered to change it there and then despite being out of hours. We sat in McDonald’s at Chelmsford for and hour as the van was freezing and we hadn`t eaten for hours. They finally came after many calls to and throw, the manager and his wife in a Peugeot that was far more suited to both our needs.

We set off again, my friend felt a bit more at ease as it was a manual drive. I didn`t feel like I was rattling around in a fridge freezer tin can, though it still got colder after a while.

 We finally got to Liphook at 9 pm but it took another hour before we found the Metro as we drove round and round; tired, too dark to read the directions easily and both still anxious from the stressful trip.

 We got to the Metro at ten only to find that despite telling the Metro booking place that I was attending Canine Partners and needed a room near my `carer` in case I need help, that because I’d not actually used the word wheelchair they had not booked me a disabled room. The two rooms booked were upstairs and they have no lift!

 The man at the desk had a short notice reshuffle and found me a ground floor room at the end of the corridor. However I couldn`t fit my wheelchair through the bathroom door, but luckily I could lodge it in the doorway and hop towards the loo holding onto the wall. The next morning though my friend had to remove a wheel to get the wheelchair into the bathroom for me to wash!

The previous night I had had to fill in a fire risk form due to my disability etc but had there been a fire that morning I would have been trapped in the bathroom and unable to get out and my friend would have been upstairs in her room packing while I washed.

 After a wash (The bath had no plug and the shower was too high) we left and had breakfast at Starbucks, which was lovely. We set off for Midhurst but after a while of going round and round I started to use the satnav on my mobile and we finally got to the CP at 11 am but I was due at 10!

 The dog trainer came down and I apologized profusely as I was embarrassed, but he was fine. I had to borrow one of their wheelchair chargers as mine had been left under the carport at home in all the van curfuffle.

 Finally, after a good chat, the trainer went to collect my dog match! (She was worth everything, She came in and she is perfect!)

 I did some cone work, going round the cones while using the command words to make the dog turn, stop, etc, and it was so much easier in my own wheelchair (Last time I had to borrow one of theirs) and it didn`t take long before she began looking to me for my next instructions instead of the trainer. We went outside for a walk and into one of the paddocks for a play, I loved it all and so did she.

 We went back inside and the trainer said I was a natural with dogs and he felt really good about the match but that he would ring the following day for how I felt and if I wanted to continue.

 The journey home was a little less eventful as I just used my mobile until we got onto the A3, despite it eating my battery per second.

 The journeys to and from put my anxiety levels and asthma through the roof and it took a few days not to feel exhausted and got a virus not long after and had to up my inhalers. My friend and I can laugh about it all now though as really it was like something from a really bad comedy sketch! lol

 A few lessons about the car hire were learned though and I have spoken to them directly with clear instructions of what`s needed in April.

 The dog trainer rang me the following day and of course, I said yes! 

  So now I am all set to go back mid-April, the vehicle is paid for barring £60. My senior dog is going to her previous owner, so I know she`ll be safe and looked after. The dog loo is built and almost ready, and the garden is safe from all rubbish and the hens fenced off. (Though at the moment getting through the dog loo trellis, so the fence isn`t working.) I am already mentally packing and practicing getting up earlier as I am not a morning person by nature. I can`t wait to see my dog again and have already bought her a pink elephant toy to play with. We`ll train for two weeks, hopefully, graduate and then we come home together! 

y trip to Liphook was quite an adventure too as it happens! Bless Sally for taking me and quite brave of her too but there was a host of things she had failed to tell me, such as, she hasn`t driven far in many years, she doesn`t use a sat nav, she can only drive manual and that when booking the WAV she hadn`t really spoken with them about the vehicle she had volunteered to drive.

Shazz

My trip to Liphook was quite an adventure too as it happens! Bless Sally for taking me and quite brave of her too but there was a host of things she had failed to tell me, such as, she hasn`t driven far in many years, she doesn`t use a sat nav, she can only drive manual and that when booking the WAV she hadn`t really spoken with them about the vehicle she had volunteered to driv

Shazz

 

Voices

Voices………………….

Voices flow,

    like rivers,

Ageless,

     like rivers.

fluid,

       like rivers.

Voices talk,

     express,

           meander,

               explain,

                     share,

rushing their emotions,

     in streams undammed;

Weaving around,

           thoughts;

sweeping up debris,

in a continuous flow,

                     ageless,

                          fluid,

                               voices talk,

                                    like rivers.

SAK-(C)-5/3/2017.

One thing about working on the helpline never ceases to amaze, fascinate, intrigue, I’m not sure what the right word should be, but is often finding out the age of the person (usually women) I’m talking to. Why? It often comes as a surprise when they tell me they are over 60, and yet their voice has had me thinking I am talking to someone much younger.

Was it their terminology? Their voice itself? Attitude? I often don`t know and yet I can speak to another and be left thinking they were much older than their years. Often I’m left thinking age is merely a state of mind, or a result of our life experiences that has left us afraid to lead a full life and leave us living a timid, reclusive, safe life that leaves us old beyond our years.

Our voices on the telephone can be a disguise as no one can see us, we can be any age or anyone we want to be. I answer the helpline in the safe knowledge that they can`t see my disability, my wheelchair, and for those few moments I am their equal, their mentor, their safe place for a little while.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop. Mother Teresa

Where to start this blog, as I haven`t been here for a while, life has been busy. Also despite finding writing a blog very cathartic, I`m also a little wary about over sharing, which is why I stay anonymous.

Life has been full this year, not by everyone’s standards but by my own as a disabled person. At times it has been tiring, sometime`s I’ve needed some `me` time, but I have enjoyed it and feel a more accepted part of my community, despite never quite losing the disabled lady tag.

I have just looked and it`s been three months since I last typed this!

I made a deliberate effort this year to get out and about. I never went far outside of where I live, (I`m aware that it`s more effort for others then, as in driving, lugging my wheelchair in and out of cars and then pushing me as I can`t take my electric wheels, they`re too big for standard cars)  but I went to groups, met up with friends and attended coffee mornings. I visited a museum and made a host of new friends along the way.  People remember me, the usual question is, “Have you heard about your dog yet?” 

I haven’t heard about meeting my Canine partner yet, (It`s been 18mths)  but I feel a new surge of belonging  amongst the `purple army` of people that have these dogs. Through Facebook they have embraced me, advised me, reassured me and are as eagerly anticipating that call with me.

I met one of the girls this weekend, and her beautifully behaved boy that stood by her side and greeted everyone lovingly, while never taking his eyes off his `mum` for too long.

I then met the young pup in the picture above, who is now 6 months old and still in training with his puppy parents.

The more I hear and see, the more excited I am for when that day comes, in fact, my bag is starting to get packed and included are a soft toy and chew bone, together with an ID for its collar. The `Purple army` assure me that my life will never be the same again, that the joy of becoming `invisible` is one of the best results in a world, where we`re so used to being looked at or ignored, now their dog is the focus of attention and the start of conversations on equal terms. It isn`t only about what they can do for us physically.

Some of my Family came to stay for a week. Three of my Nephews, all under 12, and their Mum came down south on the train, which took them hours from the North West.  We decided before they came that we were going to make memories and that we did.

We filled each day with something, with the help of friends of mine, and including them made it all the more special. I couldn`t always join in, but just watching them and being with them was enough, and they never failed to include me somehow.

Their Mum is a powerhouse, a wonder woman and the best mother I have ever seen, she gets involved in everything they do and often with more enthusiasm than them, lol.

As a friend, there is nothing we can`t talk about, and I simply adore her, she is amazing considering all that she has gone through in life.

To see my nephews after a couple of years was wonderful, they are such well-behaved gentlemen that stand up for other people on buses, shake hands when introduced to people and are always grateful for what they are given. They are great company, good conversationalists and I missed them too much when they returned home, but we had made some great memories and took over 300 pictures between us! 

I took over the administration for a Poetry group this Summer too. At first, I was a little self-conscious and didn`t want to be pushy or control the money side of it, and so I opened up and asked another Lady to take that over.I am now part of a duo that gets it sorted for others to enjoy, which is a nice feeling.  My Friend who takes me said that I shocked her and I suddenly looked like I belonged and had more confidence. I was a poet, it is my natural domain and I understand it. So now I do all the advertising, putting it out there on local pages to bring people in, and organize the posters etc and then read my own or others poems when I get there. I thoroughly enjoy it.

Ahhhhhhhhh and then there’s this, the menopause! As if Periods, Pregnancy, childbirth, Sore & leaky nipples during breastfeeding were not enough! Now I`m having tropical moments as my friend calls them, and waking up at night as though I’m in a sauna! September gave me a 23 day period but October kindly chose not to give me one at all! My sleep has been all over the show since last year, and roughly six and a half hours is average according to my Fitbit. I feel tired a lot but fortunately, they are my only real signs, I generally feel alright, though not as tolerant as I used to be.

I have visited my hospital as I fear lower bone density, which is any able bodied woman is a worry, but with a woman with Osteogenesis Imperfecta is a double worry. However, I am assured that Osteoporosis and Osteogenesis don`t team up, they run separately, so though I may gain Osteoporosis, it won`t affect my Osteogenesis (Are you following this?)  but I still may start to fracture more, simply because of the menopause. (It`s still not good news!) 

So off I trot to an occupational therapist for combat strategies, and I leave with info, and a resistance band!

Despite tropical moments, I went back on a dating site, simply because out and about I am usually surrounded by couples and It looks nice.

I was chatting to a guy for just over two months and he decided to ask if I’d like to meet up for lunch the next day, of course, I agreed. He`s not my `normal` type, he`s a couple of years older than me, a little overweight, but let’s be honest, where has my normal type got me so far? We get on well in text and never a day went by that we hadn`t shared our day with each other, so I was quietly optomistic.

So, I was waiting on whether or not a car he had fixed up for a MOT or not (He`s a mechanic) as to whether or not he could meet up still. He texted to say he could. So, I didn`t over do it but I scrubbed up, dressed nice and did my face. I wheeled to the pub with a close neighbour and met up with a lady that has a guide dog on the way for a chat. I could see his Landrover in the car park and his little dog sniffing nearby.

I waved, he waved back and I eventually finished my chat and went over. He`s no Aidan Turner but he has a quiet masculinity about him. I made a fuss of his dog and noticed the gentleman was very reserved. We eventually went in for lunch. He sat down as we decided on what to eat and I noticed his oily jeans and that even his hands were still black & oily. The conversation didn`t flow easily all the time, mostly due to his reserved nature, (He`s the same in texts, mixed signals, contrary and doesn’t give a lot) However it wasn`t uncomfortable which is strange. We parted company, he was in a hurry to get back to work.

A couple of days passed and he hadn’t mentioned our meeting at all, or what he thought of me, not a word, so eventually I asked him outright, I don`t waste my time these days. His reply was a bit tongue in cheek, very him but none the less not complimentary: “Morning , bit mad here today ! Mmm big questions last nite lol , cards on table it was good to meet you finally , i liked you would be nice to have lunch or something again some time i’ll be ur friend as long as you want me to be but nothing more sadly. I’ve pretty much given up on dating site so probably going to be a non practicing homosexual think thats the way forward lol x”

So we met on the 4th, the message about just being friends on the 8th and tomorrow the 17th we may meet up for lunch again! 

I recently had trouble with my wheelchair. If I went out with friends they weren`t able to lock the rear wheels back in. MY wheelchair is six years old now, it`s used 365 days of the year and needs a really good clean. I had it fixed once but this time got a friend to do it as he`s an engineer. 

However, for a few days, I had to use my outdoor electric wheelchair, and this was a huge life lesson for me.  I found it increasingly frustrated to be high up, the footplates do not allow me to get near surfaces and unable to be under my own power. Everything seemed slower, the housework built up around me, if I dropped anything it was a mission if I didn`t have the hand grabber with me. The relief to be back in my manual and free to whizz round at my own speed made me grateful to be able to do so.

I am still on the helpline and still find it fulfilling and even on the days when I don`t really feel up to it, I feel a sense of good after for a call that stood out. It was a little hard to juggle around a life outside of the home and my Son who often comes in and is irritated that he can`t talk to me.

However now, after a telephone course, I am now a mentor too,which means I am able to do one to one calls with people that need that extra time over a span of six weeks. I have my first two service users details and will soon begin.

I had a lovely birthday time this year in mid-October, I was spoilt by my friends and my family, and felt very blessed. 

I thoroughly enjoyed Samhain this year too, spending it with my thirteen-year-old Nephew who helped me prepare food and scare the little trick or treaters that came round. We then visited my Mother with Barmbrack and our orange treats.

Of course, it is also our New year, and so I started a new journal and looked back at the past year with a real sense of achievement and acceptance!

Helpliner. (Poem.)

Helpliner.

You don`t know me,

 I`m a voice on the phone,

A number you chose to call,

 To share your deepest fears.

You call from a place of safety,

 Anonymous from your home,

A haven that`s a safe prison,

 Where rituals and habits rule.

You cry out your despair,

 Sob your sheer panic aloud;

You share your darkest secrets,

 Your life story pours out.

Sometimes you vent your anger,

 I am your target that day.

Venting your frustrations,

 We somehow find a different way.

You may ring to share fantasies,

 The off chance taken to thrill,

You`re redirected hastily,

 As your needs I simply distil.

You ring me in loneliness,

 Your solitude suffocating,

You`re one of my `regulars`,

Weeks have passed,

                           no one visiting;

You ruminate,

                                      building fears,

 Reaching fever pitch alone,

Your worst case scenarios,

 We crisis breath,

                          we talk,

 so you`re not alone.

You`re individuals,

                                                     each one,

 Separate lives,

                                           different seasons.

Sometimes a loved one phones,

 Unable to comprehend the reasons;

Their call as valuable as yours,

 They try to understand;

                                                    they want to,

They feel frustrated,

                                                    then guilt,

 They call as they love you.

I listen to you all,

                                               each person,

 Patiently,

                                        quietly,

with empathy,

I focus on your words,

                                              between the lines,

 The unsaid deciphered silently.

I cherish your thank you`s,

  I Leave the line with a smile,

I helped you today,

                                        You praised me,

 I heard you relax,

                                              laugh even,

 It wasn`t easy,

                                                   but thank you!

 

 

 

SAK-(C)-2016.

 

Wednesday, 07 September 2016.

 

 

 

‘How do you have sex?’

I haven’t mentioned dating recently in my blog, mainly because it hasn’t featured highly on my Richter scale, I have been too busy becoming part of my community and decorating my home room by room. Trying to meet Mr Perfect for me has been put to the back of the queue.

I have thought more about it recently, as the summer months are full of pictures of couples having fun on the net, out and about, on holiday and just being together. I will be honest, I miss the companionship of having someone to go out and about with without feeling a burden to friends. Someone just for me would be nice, after all it`s been seven years now.

Also living with a young loved up couple that giggle, shower together and go out to wine & dine can often leave you feeling quite lonely and wishing you had something similar.

 

 I opened one dating site on the say of a new acquaintance that met her hubby on it, she told me to be patient. I didn`t bother trying to tell her that most people see the disability and move on……………………….

Scope believes that there is still a long way to go with research showing that only five per cent of Brits have ever asked a disabled person out on a romantic date: “We want people to relax and not let their assumptions about disability and sex get in the way of what could be an amazing connection with another person. The important thing is to focus on the person and the connection, not the impairment.” 

So, though I don`t really log in daily if I get any messages I will be notified if someone sends me a message. One such message appeared this week:

`Honesty can (but not always ) be the best policy. I do not have the strength of character to date someone in a chair. You will understand this is in no way meant to hurt.
You do look nice and at risk of sounding pervey you do look quite sexy but I think we are both looking for more then a few sexy sessions.
Good luck on here. I’m finding it awful. You can’t tell anything about anyone from a couple of pics and the odd paragraph can you.
Be good. `
This message made me smile mostly by its contradiction, he was telling me in one sentence that he hasn`t got  strength of character to date someone in a chair, which states he assumes id either be hard work to date, or id need caring for. Then he`s telling me that, You can’t tell anything about anyone from a couple of pics and the odd paragraph can you, which is exactly what he did! 

This is so common, id be good enough for sex but not a relationship. The other one is they are not bothered by my disability but they’ll message or text forever with no real intention of ever talking on the phone let alone meeting.

I cant imagine what is going on in their imaginations to be honest, what do they think we need or want? They clearly believe we all need caring for or something, to one extent yes, partly as the world isn`t designed around us when were out, but at home, no in my case as at home i am fully independent. Things like housework may take me longer, but I get there in the end. 

 The favourite questions are: Can you have sex? How do you have sex? Mostly I answer this with, yes, but not with you, because if I don`t it leads into sex talk and them inviting themselves to try!

Mostly though, I just get viewed and passed by, this fascinates me as I’ve always had a disability, and this wasn`t  always a problem when I could walk, its amazing what difference a wheelchair makes! 

I don`t want to be a killjoy,  it does work for some people:

Katie is a beautiful and vibrant redhead with a contagious smile and a noble demeanour. When her now-boyfriend saw her as a match on eHarmony, he liked her profile. Then, he realised she was in a wheelchair and, because he’s got the logical personality that comes with being an engineer for a living, he contemplated dating her for four days, doing research on her disability prior to writing to her. “I would be stupid not knowing this girl,” he said.

I myself met my second Husband on a dating site, but looking back I think it was based on just sex at first and that never really changed much, but for some reason it lasted seven years until we moved in together with our combined children and it was over. 

If you have a disability and decide to give online dating a try, follow these basic tips:

• Get to know the person before meeting: If you are dating in a wheelchair, getting around may not be the easiest thing to do. When you are meeting up with someone you are interested in dating, make sure you have done an appropriate screen so you don’t show up only to be disappointed.

• Pick an accessible meet-up place: When it’s time to meet, pick a place you know can accommodate and where you feel comfortable. You want to focus on getting to know your date, not on whether the environment is appropriate.

• Be honest about your disability up front: Not everyone may be interested in dating someone with a disability – and you probably don’t want to waste your time with someone who may not be open to it. Weed out those people up front so you don’t have to worry about disappointment after the relationship begins to develop.

• Don’t focus on your disability: If your date is only interested in talking about your disability, that probably means they aren’t interested in you as a person. Likewise, if all you do is talk about your limitations, it can hinder your ability to really get to know the other person and keep them from discovering your personality.

So, If a message pings up on my phone, I will read it and answer. If I have a moment I will browse and may occasionally send a message, (Usually ignored) but I will say that i`ve met some good people over the years, and one or two have remained friends!

As for that elusive Prince, who knows? I`m not getting any younger though!

 

Without a sense of caring, there can be no sense of community.

Last May I went to West Sussex about having a Canine Partner.It was prompted by a local Blind Lady encouraging me, together with seeing assistance dogs at a disability conference a few years ago and the fact that my present dog is in her 16th year.

  It took a bit of organising but our local Good neighbours volunteers managed to find someone to drive and accompany me and with the social services paying the cost of fuel with by Direct Payments. 

The two days in West Sussex were great, and a real blast from the past, as i`d spent many years living  there. Being in the month of May, it was beautiful, the trees and flowers at their most vivid. The Lady that drove was already a partial friend, but became a good friend through this experience. I loved all the dogs, and though self conscious and shy I enjoyed the assessment. The staff and dogs are all amazing and even on that one day I learnt such a lot about what the dogs could do, their training and my needs. 

I was visited by a occupational therapist at my home and have now been on the waiting list since my assessment since last May. Here she looked round, assessed my needs, met my life and wrote it all down. 

I  received a letter conforming that I was accepted and the wait was 18mths to two years while they found a suitable Pup for me and trained them towards me needs.

In the meantime I have to save the money to get there and stay for the two weeks training.

Expenses have been worked out as follows:

Fuel  £377.50

Accomodation x 2 people for 14 days £700

Meals  £114

Mobility vehicle hire  £1,073

TOTAL  £2,262.50!

So, as id never have that money, especially since mine has kindly been cut. My best friend, the person I trust 100% to have my best interests at heart took on the task of raising the money.  No matter how many people tell me that I am not begging, it feels that way to me. By someone else taking the reins, it means that I can be involved as little or much as I choose to be, without being wheeled out in front of people for the ahhhhhhhh factor.

So a Crowdfunding page was opened, this raised £770, but closed on March the 18th as they have a limited life span. This morphed into a paypal account, which continued to be used and still does for any money raised, together with a Twitter and Facebook page! (She really was a busy Lady!)  

  This though was about the time it grew some wings and took on a life of its own and grew in momentum, it became a community project. Straight away someone from a local garage donated the first tank of petrol to get to the Canine Partners training; the local pub; good neighbours; the wife of a parish counsellor; a local band; friends far and wide in the county; all with this shared goal, it was all so heartwarming, It felt a bit surreal at times, but so welcoming to me. 

 It can often be quite hard for a person with a disability to feel accepted because of their differences, societies attributions, their own past experiences can crowd their own perceptions on whether they feel accepted or not, and of course the general layout of where they live can inhibit how much they can join in with local events, etc. 

There was an evening arranged at my local pub, a band had volunteered to play for the evening for free, tickets were sold, raffle prizes given, a donation for snacks given and the word put out. 

 The night came and it was perfect in so many ways, and not all to do with the reason we were there. My closest friends came, some drove from an hour away, and others were staying with local friends as they lived a while away. I flitted from table to table, and enjoyed seeing them all in one room, and to be honest I felt so loved.

I was over the moon to see my family turn up as I wasnt sure they would, and it was nice to spend time with them outside of a family situation. My Son came, not for long as it really wasn`t his scene. He came in, spoke to a few people, sat down near me for a while and then left to chat to his girlfriend, but he had come!

 Seven years ago the village raised money for both my wheelchairs, but whether it was me or whether it was the situation but it felt so different. I had to make more personal appearances, thank people at several venues, etc, and I felt embarrassed, a loss of dignity and though I was being made to thank people as a child would. 

This experience has been free flowing, more natural and I have wanted genuinely to thank everyone, plus some, for their efforts, kindness and continued support and interest. So through these last few months I have met new people, got to know others better, and have started opening up a new world, and this is before I even have my new canine friend who will open even more doors with it`s arrival. I even have a new friend that will go dog walking with me when I get my dog!

  Now its just a matter of waiting for news of when a suitable Pup is found and ready and I am over half way up the waiting list. Canine Partners have had a few hold ups, in the shape of high enquiries, recently losing two members of their training staff, having a higher than usual fail rate in their dogs with behaviour or illness anda few of their brood bitches being withdraw due to health reasons, resulting in less Puppies.

  However they have placed 29 dogs this year so far and hope to have placed 84 by the end of 2016.

After the Pub fund raiser where over £600 was raised, someone anonymous kindly donated what was left to raise, a sum of £900 and now we have the full amount needed to get to the training centre in a hired WAV vehicle, pay for myself and my driver/carer for two weeks to stay and eat and any added costs. 

 To my bestie a huge thank you, and to all those that donated, big money or small, thank you, to those that came to support me, thank you and to those that stop me when Im out to ask if ive heard anything, thank you and to those that support me via the internet, thank you!

 

Money is a mechanism for control. David Korten.

    Disabled money wise I, like a lot of people have undergone a lot of changes, and not for the better.

Firstly is was my Severe disablement allowance which changed to Employment and Support Allowance. (Severe Disablement Allowance (SDA) was a United Kingdom state benefit intended for those below the state pension age who cannot work because of illness or disability. It was replaced by Incapacity Benefit in April 2001, which itself was replaced by Employment and Support Allowance.)

I kept hearing a lot of talk in the media about the Personal Independence Payment and how some people had lost their disability cars and through this their independence.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-35476904

http://www.itv.com/news/2015-03-13/disability-cuts-start-to-bite-those-who-need-it-most/

I have a friend who has done advocacy for years and she pre-warned of the cuts and the outcome for many disabled.

Despite all this I remained complacent and didn`t fear the changes, thinking that a lot must be scaremongering.

However by the time my letter came for a consultation with a health professional for Feb the 19th, I was by now slightly unnerved by the rapid surges of stories of the misery caused by these changes, these not only included loss of independence but deaths too.

I saw the ex nurse in my home, she was kind, patient and congruent, however I was afraid to move in case I seemed too independent; this in itself goes against everything I have ever tried to achieve in life. She left, but the worry didn`t. 

I have spent my entire life trying to prove to family, people I meet and new friends and lovers, that being disabled doesn`t mean being incapable, dependant, a burden, needy, a drain on society. Yet here I was feeling as though we were returning to the Victorian times.

Historic England`s site writes: The pull of the asylum and the workhouse was strong, but many thousands of people with disabilities stayed in their communities. The social investigator Henry Mayhew (1812-1887) described the disabled beggars of the London streets in 1862, including the “idiotic looking youth… shaking in every limb” and the “crab-like man without legs strapped to a board (who) walks upon his hands”.

Some disabled people prospered. James ‘deaf’ Burke (1809-1845), also known as ‘the deaf ‘un’, rose from poverty to become a world champion prize fighter. Henry Fawcett (1833-1884), blinded as a young man, became Postmaster-General in 1880; he introduced the parcel post and the postal order.`

I truly believe this is what we are returning to. disability crimes are on the rise because we are being made to look like we`re benefit scroungers or faking it.

So here we are. The letter came, and I was horrified to see we`re graded in two categories, Daily living and Mobility activities.  A list of things like preparing food, toilet needs, dressing and undressing, communication, etc, for these you get scored up to four for each and if a category was given  12 points then you get the enhanced rate, if you get lower as I did with 10, then you`re offered the standard rate. 

Then to add insult to injury and blind me with science, they then paid me in the April only 139.75 for the month, without warning and with a sudden leap into my overdraft facility!

I now receive the standard rate of Daily living, with now means I`m now at a monthly rate of £124.88 less that I used to get, when I was told my DLA was for life as is my disability. 

I am now grossly overdrawn due to the sudden drop of money in April and the drop now in benefits, which according to the paperwork includes the `money we owe you and all future payments.` I rang in April about the huge drop in money that month as I feared for my bills and had spent as normal without realising, but was repeatedly told, `that`s the way it`s done.`

The Motability people sadly have a statement for all the people now in a position where they are losing their cars: http://www.motability.co.uk/understanding-the-scheme/personal-independence-payment-and-motability/q-and-a-transitional-support-package 

The Motability scheme don`t only enable people to hire cars, but also power chairs, which is the difference between being in their homes 24/7 or being able to be out and part of their community. My own power chair was almost £6000, they are not cheap. 

Its been gruelling, but its not over yet; I have appealed against the decision as im not a tick box, I am an individual. No two days are the same, I can be alright this morning but be on six weeks bedrest with a fracture by this evening. I was born this way, I`m not going to have a Lourdes recovery, in fact with age it well may become worse with the onset of Osteoporosis alongside my Osteogenesis.


 The elderly believe they are disabled, which to a degree they are but they are the primary voters that are exempt from bedroom tax, disability cuts or changes. 

 The most recent talk are the Invictus games, a good cause but sadly over shadowing the Paralympics and the real problems faced by those not made disabled by heroic acts but by birth or life. 

 (Excuse writing changes, I cant correct them and dont know why it kept changing on it`s own, if you know please let me know, x)

 

 

Most activism is brought about by us ordinary people. Patricia Hill Collins.

I am a Disabled, Vegetarian, anti trident, anti hunting, animal rescuing woman that only uses eco & non animal tested products in her home, that has tried to raise her Son to see what a strong, independent woman can achieve.

I try to live by what I believe, but I don`t tend to dictate my values onto others, despite them being important to me.

It shocks me though, the amount of venom I see amongst people on the internet aimed at others that don`t match their beliefs; their personal beliefs spat and used as ammunition to degrade and intimidate others.

I have been disabled since my Mothers womb, although I know no different, I have only been a fulltime wheelchair for 22yrs. I have rarely felt the need to use my disability as a `get out of jail free card` and have never considered myself hard done by or hard up.

I once went to a Disability meeting in London, and left totally ashamed and embarrassed to be disabled after listening to a person`s able bodied relative being lambasted by the disabled there; It wasn`t positive for their cause. I have since been told by people that they`re afraid to hold doors open or help, after being verbally attacked when doing so by the disabled. (Even able bodied people have doors held open for them, i`ve seen it!) Notes left on cars with blue badges by other blue badge holders when they `don`t look disabled enough,` when in fact they may have an unseen disability. (I have been guilty of assuming in the past, but now hopefully know better.) 

I have been a vegetarian since I was 21, that`s a long time now, I have only lapsed when in a controlling relationship where I was subjected to humiliation for my beliefs, as soon as that was over I returned to not eating meat. I have a manner of reasons for choosing this way of life: 

1, I don`t believe there is any kind way to kill another sentient being.

2, Mass production means animals are only seen as a commodity and not a living being.

3, I don`t believe we have a clue what drugs are fed or placed into animals to make them fatten up etc, and then these are consumed by those that eat them.

4, I don`t approve of the way these beings are kept from birth to death, separated from mothers, Killed for being the wrong sex, etc.

5, In the words of George bernard Shaw, `Animals are my friends, and I don`t eat my friends.`

6. I don`t understand why people cry and get upset about Dogs being eaten and can`t see the same about pigs, cows, lambs, etc. The Tesco horror about Horse meat was a classic example of that.

7. I believe my diet is healthier and brings about a better, more thought out lifestyle, I think about what I eat and the benefits outweigh any social inconvenience I have when eating out.

8. I am happy! 

I am happy to respect other people`s choices though, I don`t inflict mine and won`t say anything unless asked, because It is MY choice, not there`s.

I am on animal sites where I have obtained my battery hens or rescue animals and see the hatred directed at those that have rescued hens, etc but still choose to eat meat. I myself have been under attack for not going completely Vegan, and yet, at home I eat dairy free products such at margarine, milk, etc, it is only when out I choose not to expect others to buy soya milk just for me! I respect my Son`s choice to eat meat, though we use separate frying pans, etc, and I know that has been frowned upon by some in the past, but just as I never chose his religion or clothes sense I also don`t choose his eating choices, they have to be his and come from the right place. His Girlfriend though HAS become vegetarian in the time they have been together and she`s been visiting here.

I have taken in rescue animals since I had my first home, dogs, cats, rats, mice, all sorts, even a owl that was hit by a car bumper, seagulls, a goose, so many. I used to volunteer with a rabbit rescue but soon realised that the woman I took the rabbits in for was letting the rescue place think she was doing it all herself, no mention of me! 

I have always supported animal charities, not always financially, as that would cost a fortune but in Christmas cards, and putting the word out, but have often thought that they see every person interested in a animal as a potential wrong`un until proven otherwise. They can often give out the wrong signals because they see so much abuse, sometimes seeming hostile.

 

I first learnt about Nuclear bombs during my CSE Art exam where I did a black and white depiction of victims of a bomb and only the nuclear explosion was coloured, I got a B in this exam. My Art teacher was a typically travelled to India hippie type, and my favourite teacher because she taught us more than just the basic subjects. I loved listening to her travelling tales while we worked.

In Devon, at College, my electronics tutor was of a similar vein to my art teacher.My tutor refused to have a tele in his home, preferring to let his children lead a more natural lifestyle. He taught me pyrography and I made a wooden pendant with the CND sign on it, and had a anti trident poster on my wall in my room, amongst the latest pop idols, all because of listening to him talk.

With the recent activity of leaders chosen by media raised generations, for all the wrong reasons, I fear that Trident control is more necessary than ever. Even the fact that people accept so easily nuclear power with no fear of the dangers if anything goes wrong fills me with dread! 

Hiroshima should have been a lesson to us all, but nothing was learnt, and now Tridents are more powerful than ever, NOTHING would survive, so why are we so determined to defend them as deterrents against war? 

It is the same fear that keeps guns in peoples home for protection, where innocent children accidental shoot each other, and people shoot each other for the wrong reasons, or mass shootings happen! Can you imagine that same mentality let loose with a Trident?

I know the arguments for this, they come thick and fast, people rally for and against but to me it makes no logical sense to keep something in each and every country, they cost millions, where money could be spend on the good, for people rather than fear, death and destruction.

Nuclear Power-Free Countries

The growing list of countries pledging to phase out nuclear power:

• Belgium
• Denmark
• Japan
• Germany
• Scotland (100% renewable by 2020)
• Sweden
• Switzerland

Countries which are no longer nuclear powered, or never were and have pledged to stay to that way:

• Australia
• Austria
• Belize
• Cambodia
• Colombia
• Costa Rica
• Greece
• Ireland
• Italy
• Latvia
• Liechtenstein
• Lithuania
• Nepal
• New Zealand
• Peru
• Spain

As you probably know by now if you read my blog regularly, I follow a Pagan path. The earth, elements and nature are important to me. I quietly do my bit to help save our planet by not bringing anything into my home that poisons the water, kills the soil or harms anything living alongside us. I believe if we all chose to do this, we would be leaving not only a better planet for our children but a less material message to pass down. The prices would come down as eco and organic products cost more at the moment, and it would become the norm to show we care rather than `hippie` as it is seen now.

If organic products cost less more people would eat healthier by choice and convenience foods would not be the first option for struggling parents; obesity would also become less and so on.Instead we invest more money in wider ambulances, trolleys and the suchlike, costing millions and adapting homes for those already obese instead of educating them. Why do we always choose the less obvious option?

People become so militant about their beliefs, which I understand, and political correctness is one such subject where speaking the truth causes outcry and is seen as bullying, though some do go too far and refuse to back down in their passion, it`s a fine line. 

Do marches work? Does shouting someone down make them listen, (it doesn`t seem to in the house of commons) does being passionate make you any more right? I don`t know but I know these people made the world listen, and they did it by example not conflict.

I like to stay quiet and just live by example. 

 

“Dogs never bite me. Just humans.” ― Marilyn Monroe.

 

In my adult life I have had dogs, two I wasn`t able to keep due to circumstances out of my control at the time, and four I have had till their old age took them.

 

I grew up with a dog, I loved her, she was my friend. I told her all my woes, chatted to her, lay on her when I was tired and sobbed my heart out when she was ill, suffering and had to be put down. The timing was as I left home to study across the country aged 17.

Aged 21, I got a six week old Pup, she had her own `suitcase` as she came away to study with me by the sea. We walked miles on the beach, rain or shine and she`d snub me if I was drunk, which always made me smile. She slept on my bed, and had her own mind. Not the best trained dog as I didn`t really have a clue, but I loved her, she was my friend. We sofa surfed together and she was an old Lady when she passed away in my kitchen aged fourteen. Like many dog owners, I have kept the belongings that still keep her close to me and a marble headstone.

There`s been a couple of neighbours that have lost their dogs recently, one through old age, another through over kindness. Both owners devastated by their loss, their dogs a loved member of their family.

One owner, an elderly man. His dog had been on medication for a long time, the dog clearly unwell. People quietly talking about him `doing the right thing` and not letting the dog suffer. Yes, he should have, long ago, but sad to see a grown man cry when the day actually came and the vet told him the dog had decided he`d had enough.

The second owner loved her dog as a child substitute after being unable to carry her babies. This dog loved her and she him, but to the detriment of his health. Dishing up the same meals as she and her Husband had, but in smaller portions. The dog was obese and on the wrong diet, he struggled to breath at his biggest and couldn`t jump up like other dogs, and had the sweetest temperament.. Despite vets warnings and other people, she just couldn`t bare to deprive him and imagined he was `hungry.` Even in his last days and he was off his food she was hand feeding him chicken and steak, simply because she loved him.

I had a friend years ago, her old dog had Cancer, he had been her companion before marriage and children, a reminder of her youth. She loved him. He became unwell with cancer, his face became disfigured and he was prescribed medication to ease his pain as she couldn`t bare to part with him. He eventually past while she was out and as he slept on her bed. It`s easy to pass judgement and say she should have `done the right thing by him` sooner, but love is never that easy.

I had three dogs at one time. One id only had four years, but he was such a faithful, loving old free spirit with a sad history that I loved him instantly when I met him. I felt sad when he was diagnosed with prostrate and anal cancer, (He`d not been castrated) I wanted him to have one last Christmas with my Son and I, and I made a big thing of getting him a doggy stocking etc. He did well over that period but went down hill not long after and I still question whether I should have done the right thing by him sooner. He was nineteen, a wonderful age for a beautiful spirit.

My Second dog had been on family holidays with us, she suffered terrible seperation anxiety but I loved her loving ways, such a gentle soul. She had had previous homes, but not sure how many as she had been found wandering the streets and taken to the Dogs Trust, and then put in the paper `Free to a good home` by the couple they homed her with, when I took her in. I then contacted the `Dogs Trust`  and they allowed me to keep her, she was then about 2/3yrs. In her old age she had three mini strokes, on the third I had her put down as she had become confused and disorientated. I changed Vets though after the way she was put down. She was a big dog, held down while she fought to get away and off the high table. To this day I wish Id just shouted `stop` and took her home, as she was so frightened in her last moments and I carry that guilt. She was fifteen.

The last of my three is sixteen this year, her hearing and eyesight are now selective or bad. (depending on her mood, lol.) She`ll keep going as long as she still tries to the steal the cats food, wolfs down her own and has her `mad moments` in the evening when she races round in play. She`s a character, but no longer enjoys social gatherings, so she chooses to hide away. When she stops enjoying life, I will `do the right thing,` though it`s never the easiest choice.

For every dog I have, it is teamwork, they give me companionship, joy, laughter and tears and in turn I try to give them a wonderful life where they only know kindness and love.