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London, a city steeped in history and mystery, has its share of well-known landmarks—the gleaming towers of the City, the majestic Buckingham Palace, and the famous West End theatres. Yet, hidden away from the bustling streets and modern attractions is a darker, almost forgotten chapter in the city’s history. Nestled within the vibrant South Bank, an area now synonymous with cultural regeneration and affluence, lies a small, rusted iron gate adorned with ribbons, feathers, and tokens. Behind that gate rests the Cross Bones Graveyard, a solemn reminder of a time when Southwark was not the glittering hub of art and commerce it is today, but London’s first red-light district—a place for the city’s outcasts. Southwark: London’s First Red-Light District To understand the significance of Cross Bones Graveyard, one must first take a step back into the past, to the Southwark of the Middle Ages. Located just south of the River Thames, this area was once marshland, a damp and undesirable place on the fringes of London proper. Yet, by virtue of its location, Southwark became a hub for those seeking entertainment and, often, illicit pleasures. Theatres, taverns, bear-baiting pits, and brothels flourished in this district—“amusements” that drew both locals and travelers alike. Southwark’s notoriety began as far back as Roman times when soldiers stationed in the area would frequent its taverns and brothels. This trend continued unabated for centuries, even through the Viking era and the Crusades. As London Bridge was established in the 12th century, connecting the southern bank of the Thames to the bustling city, Southwark became even more important as a center for commerce—and vice. Its red-light district became infamous, a place where visitors could indulge their desires, free from the restrictions and laws of the City of London, which ended at the river’s edge. Southwark, outside the city’s jurisdiction, allowed the flourishing of activities frowned upon by London’s more respectable citizens. The Winchester Geese and the Bishop’s Rule By the 12th century, Southwark had come under the control of one of the most powerful religious figures in England: the Bishop of Winchester. This arrangement may seem strange today, as the church is often perceived as a moral authority. Yet, in medieval England, the bishop wielded both religious and secular power. Among his many privileges was the right to license and tax Southwark’s brothels and prostitutes. The women who worked there were derisively called the “Winchester Geese,” perhaps because of their habit of baring their white breasts to attract customers. To be “bitten by a Winchester Goose” was to suffer a sexually transmitted disease, and prostitution in Southwark was fraught with such risks. Gonorrhea, syphilis, and other venereal diseases spread rampantly through the stews—the name given to Southwark’s brothels. These establishments, sometimes as few as five, sometimes as many as 18, depending on the year, became an indelible part of Southwark’s identity. The crown’s repeated attempts to control prostitution in Southwark were a testament to the area’s enduring notoriety. King Henry II attempted to regulate the stews through the “Ordinances Touching the Government of the Stewholders in Southwark,” a set of 39 rules implemented in 1161. These ordinances required the prostitutes to be registered, barred nuns and married women from joining their ranks, and placed various restrictions on their activities. Curiously, these regulations also sought to ensure the prostitutes’ autonomy, preventing them from being coerced into staying in the brothels and prohibiting them from taking their own lovers. Despite these attempts at regulation, Southwark’s red-light district persisted. The Bishop of Winchester continued to profit from the women who worked under his jurisdiction. Yet, for all the power the Bishop wielded over the lives of these women, one thing remained beyond his control: their deaths. According to Christian doctrine, prostitutes were not allowed to be buried in consecrated ground. The church denied them proper burial rites, and so, their bodies were laid to rest in a place far from the parish church—a plot of land that would later be known as Cross Bones Graveyard. Cross Bones: The Graveyard of the Outcasts The origins of Cross Bones Graveyard can be traced back to the Tudor period when Southwark’s red-light district was in full swing. Historian John Stow wrote in 1598 that “single women,” a euphemism for prostitutes, were forbidden the rites of the church so long as they continued their sinful lives. As a result, they were excluded from Christian burial and interred in a plot known as the “Single Woman’s churchyard.” Located far from the parish church, Cross Bones Graveyard became the final resting place for Southwark’s outcasts. It was a place for the poor, the diseased, and the unloved—those who lived their lives on the fringes of society. As Southwark evolved, so too did the use of Cross Bones. By the Victorian era, Southwark had become one of London’s most notorious slums, plagued by crime, poverty, and disease. Cross Bones was repurposed as a pauper’s graveyard, serving the parish of St. Saviour’s. The conditions in Cross Bones were as miserable as those who were buried there. In 1833, William Taylor, an antiquarian, wrote about the cemetery: “There is an unconsecrated burial ground known as the Cross Bones at the corner of Redcross Street, formerly called the Single Woman’s burial ground, which is said to have been used for this purpose.” As the decades passed, Cross Bones became increasingly overcrowded. Bodies were buried just two feet beneath the surface, and the stench of decomposition permeated the air. Residents complained that the cemetery was a public health hazard, particularly during the cholera epidemic that ravaged London. Although it was later discovered that contaminated water was the true cause of the outbreak, at the time, many believed the foul-smelling graves were to blame. By 1853, Cross Bones had become so overcrowded that the cemetery was officially closed. An 1832 letter from parish authorities described the situation in grim detail: “The ground is so very full of coffins that it is necessary to bury within two feet of the surface, and the effluviem is so very offensive that we fear the consequences may be very injurious to the surrounding neighbourhood.” The Forgotten Dead and the Resurrection of Cross Bones For many years after its closure, Cross Bones was largely forgotten, left to decay as Southwark transformed around it. The cemetery was briefly used as a fairground, but complaints from locals about the noise and disruption led to its abandonment. By the 20th century, the graveyard had faded into obscurity, overshadowed by Southwark’s ongoing redevelopment. That all changed in the 1990s when the London Underground embarked on a project to extend the Jubilee Line. The plan required the construction of an electricity substation on the site of Cross Bones Graveyard. Before the project could proceed, however, archeologists from the Museum of London were called in to investigate. They knew that the site contained an old burial ground, but the scale of what they found was shocking. Over the course of six weeks, archeologists excavated 148 skeletons from the top layers of the soil—an estimated one percent of the total number of bodies buried there. The skeletons told a tragic story of suffering and hardship. More than half of the remains belonged to children, a reflection of the high rates of infant mortality in 19th-century London. Many of the bones bore the scars of diseases such as rickets, scurvy, and syphilis. These were the bodies of the poor and the forgotten, buried in cheap coffins, their lives marked by illness and poverty. The discovery of these remains reignited public interest in Cross Bones. Local historian Patricia Dark described the cemetery as “a place where you can go and celebrate the people nobody remembers.” For many, Cross Bones became a symbol of the marginalised and the overlooked, a place where the dead could be honoured and remembered. The Southwark Mysteries and the Modern Revival of Cross Bones The revival of interest in Cross Bones was not solely driven by archeological discoveries. In 1996, local poet and playwright John Constable claimed to have been visited by the spirit of a medieval prostitute he called “The Goose.” According to Constable, the Goose began dictating poems to him, the first of which would later form the basis of his work The Southwark Mysteries . The verse Constable wrote down that night in 1996 reads: For tonight in Hell They are tolling the bell For the Whore that lay at the Tabard, And well we know How the carrion crow Doth feast in our Cross Bones Graveyard. Constable’s work breathed new life into the cemetery. In 1998, the first Halloween ritual at Cross Bones was performed, drawing attention to the site and its forgotten dead. For 13 years, until 2010, a community of people gathered annually to honour the memory of those buried in Cross Bones. They built altars, performed parts of The Southwark Mysteries , and carried out candle-lit processions to the cemetery gates. Today, these rituals continue on a smaller scale, with monthly vigils taking place at the site. Cross Bones has become a place of remembrance for many, not just for those connected to Southwark’s historical past but for those looking to remember their own dead. Constable and his supporters, known as the Friends of Cross Bones, have worked to transform the neglected graveyard into a wild garden, a sanctuary where visitors can reflect on the lives of those who were buried there. The Future of Cross Bones Graveyard As Southwark continues to evolve, the future of Cross Bones remains uncertain. In recent years, there have been plans to redevelop the site, raising concerns among the community that the graveyard could be lost forever. However, thanks to the efforts of Constable and the Friends of Cross Bones, there is hope that the site will be preserved. Transport for London, which now owns the land, has granted Constable and his volunteers access to the site, and Southwark Council has pledged £100,000 to create a permanent garden of remembrance at the cemetery. For those who gather at Cross Bones, the site represents more than just a historical curiosity—it is a place where the dead are honoured, where the forgotten are remembered. As Southwark continues to change, the graveyard stands as a reminder of the area’s darker past, a past that is often overlooked amidst the shiny new office towers and bustling tourist attractions. Yet, as Patricia Dark notes, Cross Bones is not just a place for the dead. It is also a place for the living, a place where people can come together to celebrate their shared humanity. In a city as vast and impersonal as London can sometimes feel, Cross Bones offers a space for reflection, connection, and healing. The graveyard that once housed the bodies of Southwark’s outcasts now serves as a testament to the resilience of the human spirit, a place where the wounds of history are slowly being healed, one vigil at a time. #london

When north Wales exploded into open revolt against an exploitative English elite. Countless towns were laid waste, their populations massacred. Henry IV’s retaliatory expedition was humiliated and sent packing back to England. Conwy Castle — that glittering jewel of royal might — was captured. And a new Prince of Wales was declared: Owain Glyndefrdwy, or Owain Glyndwr for short. Now in 1401, Glyndwr moved on. Huge numbers flocked to his banner raised in the mountains of west Wales, outside Aberystwyth. But not only Welsh. The Gower peninsula, near Swansea, included a substantial colony of Flemish traders. They followed news of the rebellion with increasing fear for their livelihoods, and noted how it was spreading south. Unable even to appeal to the English king for assistance, they concluded in their councils that only they could organise their defence, and the best defence would be a preemptive attack to take the Welsh by surprise. At Mynydd Hyddgen, they certainly did surprise the Welsh, who, having established there were no English in the countryside, were not expecting any offensive columns to approach. But Glyndwr’s archers simply seized their bows. Thousands of razor-sharp shafts poured from the sky. The untrained Flemish merchants saw their friends and relatives crumpling around them. Those with shields held them aloft as they tip-toed through the multitudes of shafts stuck in the ground. Those without shields were going nowhere but down. Within minutes, all discipline collapsed as the terrified wholesalers turned and fled. Those who could not run were abandoned to an agonised, lonely death. There was nothing more for the Welsh to do but to leap into their saddles, pursue the running vendors, and cut them down. Deadly Welsh Archers Welsh archers were deadly, and all of Europe knew it. Compelled by law to attend archery practice every Sunday from the age of seven, many of them had been seasoned in the battles of the Wars of the Roses. Their bows were made of European yew (British yew didn’t work as well), imported as staves and shaped by bowyers. Such was the demand that by the end of the 1500s, mature yew trees were almost extinct in northern Europe. The staves were cut from the centre of the tree, comprising about half sapwood and half heartwood. The sapwood performed best under tension, and so was carved into the front of the bow. The heartwood worked best under compression, so was carved into the back of the bow. The arrow shafts were made of ash, with a nock at the back for the bowstring. Fletchlings were feathers, always from the same wing, cut to size and carefully glued and tied to the shaft to make the arrow spin as it flew. It improved the accuracy. A minimum of three was needed, but four would improve the accuracy, at the cost of reduced range. Arrowheads The arrowheads, called “points,” were glued or attached with a pin. The most basic type, that a skilled blacksmith could bang out in about fifteen minutes, was the bodkin (1). Little more than an iron pyramid no wider than the shaft, this basic, all-purpose arrow was capable of penetrating basic padding and sometimes chain mail. Penetrating plate armour required a specialised bodkin (2), one whose elongated profile and acute angles preserved the arrow’s momentum as it struck its target. These were probably the arrows that the Welsh used to such devastation against the Flemish, but broadheads were also deployed for specialist purposes. The broadhead in the image above, incorporating a small cage in its design, is a fire arrow (3). We’ve all seen them in the movies. The cage could be packed with wool, soaked in oil, and ignited prior to firing. They could be used to burn down wooden defences and gates. But while they were present in most campaigns, their complexity to forge meant they were rarely used unless something needed to be burned. The forked head (4) is commonly found in archaeological digs; nevertheless, its purpose is unclear. Some have suggested it was a maritime weapon, intended to rip the sails of enemy ships. None were found aboard the Mary Rose, however. Others have suggested they may have been used to sever the tendons of enemy horses, although this would have demanded a tremendous aim. A hunting website suggests that bodkins cause a clean puncture wound that an animal is not always immediately aware of, and that a forked head, on its spinning shaft, would cause such a terrible wound, inflicting such pain on the poor horse, that it would throw off its rider. Barbed broadheads (5) were sharpened all along their leading-edge, secured to the shaft with a pin, and came in different sizes. The larger of the two above was too expensive to pepper a battlefield with. It was intended primarily for hunting. On August 2nd 1100, William II was accidentally shot through the lung by an arrow while hunting, probably by one of these. Small wonder that he died. A small barbed broadhead sliced through the target’s flesh and blood vessels, in a similar manner to a dagger, but the barbs wedged into the muscle, making it difficult to remove before the patient bled to death. The shaft could be snapped off, making it less inconvenient, but the head would remain in the body. When Henry of Monmouth was shot through the right cheek at the battle of Shrewsbury during the Glyndwr Rebellion, he remained on the battlefield with the arrowhead still lodged in his jaw. Only once the battle was won did he have it removed, the surgeon constructing a special device specifically for the purpose. It is a myth, however, that this was all done without anaesthetic. It’s barely conceivable that a surgeon could have kept his patient still while inflicting that much pain on him. Hemlock, opium, henbane and mandragora could be used to render the patient unconscious — at a price. Surgeons — at a price! The surgeons were always at a price. Armies included no medical corps in the fifteenth century. People claiming to be doctors followed the expedition with the baggage train, along with all the other camp followers: cobblers, seamstresses, saddle makers, cooks, brewers, bakers, washerwomen and whores. The aftermath of any battle saw wanderers picking through the dead and dying: thieves, many of them, but also doctors offering healing to those who could pay. We may assume they typically demanded a high price of those begging for their lives. If the wounded man couldn’t afford it, certainly, another wounded man would be able to. And after the glory — the dirty work Archers had one further task, one that is rarely mentioned, because they themselves rarely talked about it. After the battle, as the army pursued the fleeing enemy, it was the archers job to join the wanderers on the field. One purpose was to retrieve the thousands of arrows sticking up from the ground. Another was to identify the wounded. Enemy wounded of rank could be rescued, nursed back to health, and held for ransom. The rest would be murdered: with a dagger through the skull into the brain, or a knife across the throat. Enemy foot soldiers were of no value. This almost certainly accounts for a large number of the french dead at the battle of Agincourt. The end of Glyndwr For nearly ten years, the Glyndwr Rebellion raged, reducing Wales to cinders. Despite evicting English rule from almost the whole of Wales, Glyndwr hadn’t the resources to secure his gains after the death of his ally, Henry Hotspur, at Shrewsbury. Slowly, the movement crumbled, the king’s authority was reimposed, the rebellion’s leaders killed or executed. Glyndwr’s wife and daughters were dispatched to the Tower of London, never to be heard of again. Owain Glyndwr himself disappeared. Legend has it that, like King Arthur, he sleeps, awaiting a time of crisis to return. The Welsh archers, though, were surprisingly quick to join Henry V’s expedition to France just a few years later. Their living standards destroyed along with the Welsh countryside, the prospect of plunder offered the sharpest improvement in their lifestyles they were ever likely to see. They distinguished themselves at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, where, as at Mynydd Hyddgen, their torrents of razor-sharp arrows devastated the French knights (which included a handful of Welsh irreconcilables). So feared were they that a captured archer could expect to have his right index and middle fingers cut off, preventing him ever drawing a bowstring again. As they jeered the retreating French, Henry V’s archers waved their index and middle fingers in the air, an insult that survives today.

The Shankill Butchers ride tonight You’d better shut your windows tight They’re sharpening their cleavers and their knives And taking all their whiskey by the pint — The Decemberists, “The Shankill Butchers” From 1975 to 1979 they terrorised Northern Ireland. Today the area they haunted, Shankill, has become synonymous with savagery. The Shankill Butchers were a loyalist (Protestant) gang, many of whose members belonged to the Ulster Volunteer Force. Headed by Lenny Murphy, a former convict, the gang brutally murdered 23 people within a period of four years. Catholics were abducted on the streets and slowly tortured. Some were ferociously beaten. Others were shot or had their throats cut open. The group's actions became so famous that they quickly became part of folklore. Catholics who were raised during the peak of the "Troubles" (as the conflict was later called) remember being cautioned by their mothers not to venture out after dark, or else they would fall victim to the Butchers. During the 1970s and 1980s, Northern Ireland experienced a violent conflict between Catholics and Protestants known as a civil war. Protestant loyalists aimed to keep the country within the United Kingdom, whereas Catholic nationalists sought for it to separate from the United Kingdom and join a united Ireland. Despite being the majority in Northern Ireland, Catholics believed they were facing discrimination under the Protestant-controlled Stormont government. Protestants received favorable treatment in terms of job opportunities and housing. In 1964, nationalists initiated a nonviolent civil rights movement aiming to eliminate employment and housing bias, advocate for police reform (as the police force was predominantly Protestant), and call for the repeal of the Special Powers Act, which permitted arrests and detentions without due process. Initially, the demonstrators aimed to maintain nonviolent intentions and methods. The civil rights campaign leaders were confident in their ability to achieve political change without the need for violence. However, the situation took a turn in August 1969 when clashes broke out between Catholic nationalists and the royal police force, perceived as a symbol of an oppressive government. This led to two days and two nights of rioting during the "Battle of the Bogside," triggering a wave of violence across Northern Ireland. Subsequently, the British Army was deployed to quell the unrest and restore order. The nation was now divided into three armed and increasingly hostile factions: the Catholic majority (including the Irish Republican Army), the Protestant minority (including the Ulster Volunteer Force), and the British Army (which Catholics perceived as siding with the Protestants). At first the IRA merely targeted Protestant businesses, planting 150 bombs, but largely avoided killing civilians for fear of alienating its growing support among the Irish public. Yet as the violence escalated, first one soldier and then another was killed. Famously, a 19-year-old soldier stranded in Belfast was seized and held captive by a mob of women before being killed by a Catholic of around his own age. He died begging for his mother. Looking back on his time in the IRA some decades later, leader Tommy McKearney tried to explain his motivations for engaging in acts of violence. “At that stage I believed that it was essential that I take part in the struggle. Coming from the community I come from, and came from at that time, with the history we have, it’s not seen as criminal. I didn’t see it as a criminal activity. I didn’t see it as any different than any other man joining an army to take part in a defense of war would.” His fellow IRA member Richard Macauley avers: “In a war one does things one wouldn’t normally consider doing.” Soon these words would take on a grim new meaning. At the time, however, most people on both sides of the conflict had only a vague inkling of the horrible forces that war could unleash. “I think there was a fear in the Protestant community,” reflects one loyalist woman, “that whatever we had unleashed would be something we would find very, very difficult to curtail.” In 1973, a young man named Lenny Murphy was acquitted for a murder he had almost certainly committed: the shooting of a Catholic, William Edward Pavis, in broad daylight. The one witness to the crime, Murphy’s accomplice, died in jail of cyanide poisoning after writing a note exonerating Murphy and taking full responsibility for the murder. Investigators at Scotland Yard believe Murphy—a cunning man who had already sabotaged a police lineup—forced his accomplice to write the note and then take his own life. “I don’t honestly believe he was a bad man,” Murphy’s mother would later insist in a BBC documentary, Shankill Butchers , though at least one fellow loyalist described him as a “psychopath.” The youngest of three sons, of below average height, Murphy was an unlikely murder suspect. Blue-eyed, with curly, dark brown hair, his most striking features were a series of tattoos signifying his allegiance to the Ulyster loyalists, and a leather jacket and scarf. During his time in prison, he married and had one daughter with 19-year-old Margaret Gillispie. After his release, Murphy frequented pubs near Shankill Road, nursing what some would later describe as a pathological hatred of Catholics. According to him, on August 13, 1975 he had just left the Bayardo when the pub was rocked by a bomb planted by IRA members, killing five Protestants and injuring over 50. Shortly after this event, Murphy began gathering a gang of about 20 men who would come to be known as the Shankill Butchers. On November 25, 1975, the body of Frank Crossan, a North Belfast Catholic and father of two, was discovered in a back alley by an elderly woman. Whilst walking towards the city centre at shortly after midnight he had been pulled into a taxi by four of the butchers, including Murphy, who hit him over the head with a wheel brace. He was beaten and the shard of a glass bottle was shoved into his head. As the taxi approached the Shankill area, Crossan was dragged from the car and Murphy cut his throat with a knife. He was almost decapitated. Reflecting on the scene, one of the constabularies in charge of the investigation said, “Evil was the only word to describe it. Just evil.” A few nights later, a local man named Ted McQuaid and his wife Dierdre attended a party. At around 3:30am they were walking home along the Cliftonville Road when she noticed a black taxi slowly driving past on the opposite side of the road. It turned left and disappeared from view, then reappeared a moment later. Dierdre pointed out to her husband the strange nature of the taxi’s movements and they argued about it. However, even when it stopped a short distance in front of them, Ted remained unalarmed. Apparently annoyed by Dierdre’s warnings, he began walking several steps ahead of her. When the door of the car opened and a young man got out, Ted was standing in between him and his wife. The man stumbled towards them, swaying as if he was drunk. Dierdre said to Ted, “It’s okay, he’s drunk.” As she said this, the man reached into his left pocket and pulled out a small gun, firing four bullets at Ted in rapid succession. “He never looked at me,” Dierdre would later recall, “but kept shooting at Ted.” As the assailant returned to the taxi and sped away, Ted, who lay bleeding on the ground, urged his wife to run. Though seriously wounded, he was still breathing ten minutes later when picked up by an ambulance, but died on arrival at the Mater Hospital. The murderer, William Moore, later tried to distance himself from the killing of Ted McQuaid by insisting that he had urged Murphy not to murder a blind man who had been out walking his dog at around the time they first spotted Dierdre and Ted. Moore did not consider the blind man an “acceptable target,” while Murphy had no scruples about killing anyone so long as he could confirm they were Catholic. According to crime reporter Martin Dillon in his book The Shankill Butchers , Moore’s protestations against killing the blind man unconsciously echoed the feelings of many Irish on both sides of the conflict during the war years. In Northern Ireland at that time, as in so many other places, people condemned the atrocities being committed against their own side while turning a blind eye to the atrocities that their side was committing. Loyalty to the tribe kept them silent in the face of obvious injustice. At the same time, it seems clear that Moore was trying to rationalise his role in the murder of Ted McQuaid by conceding that while, yes, he had done some terrible things, he had also done some very good things like saving the life of the blind man. In emphasising this kind act, he may have convinced himself that what he did was normal and good. These flimsy self-rationalisations were rapidly turning the Shankill Butchers into the figures of legend that Colin Meloy would one day describe in song: They used to be just like me and you They used to be sweet little boys But something went horribly askew Now killing is their only source of joy Yet the killings took place against a backdrop of merciless barbarism in Northern Ireland that was slowly engulfing the rest of the United Kingdom. While extending the military campaign to England had been debated by the IRA’s ruling counsel for some time, at first they had refrained from targeting the British for fear of rendering themselves illegitimate. “Doves” argued against the use of force while hawks felt London should be bombed. In 1973 the doves were overruled and the IRA began a strategic series of bombings in London and other major cities. In the first London bombing in early 1973, 200 people were injured. In January 1974, a bomb exploded at Madame Tussauds, followed a few minutes later by another bomb in the Earls Court Exhibition Centre. In June, a bomb exploded in the Houses of Parliament, injuring eleven people. A month later, one person died when a bomb went off in the Tower of London. In November, a bomb was thrown through the window of the Kings Arm Pub in Woolwich, killing an off-duty soldier and civilian. Downing Street tried to appease the Republican terrorists by appearing to negotiate a ceasefire in which the British army would leave Northern Ireland. In reality this agreement was just a tactical maneuver: the government hoped to placate the IRA and end the bombings without any significant military disengagement. Though the ceasefire crippled and nearly destroyed the Republican army, the end result was more violence. Fearing that a secret deal was being made with the IRA, Loyalist (Protestant) paramilitaries launched a bloody onslaught against Catholics, hoping to lure the IRA into breaking the truce. Five Catholics were killed inside a pub and three members of a popular band were gunned down. The IRA retaliated by bombing a pub on the Shankill road and killing five Protestants. Journalist J. Bowyer Bell reflects on this tragic period in his exhaustive 800-page book, The Irish Troubles: A Generation of Violence, 1967-1992 : “Over the years I watched the bombs being made . . . and saw them go off . . . I watched the landscape change and watched even the indomitable Irish change. And I changed. Gradually, like everyone else, I was transmuted by the years on the edge of a war without victories, with only victims, a long, long war. There were so many funerals, so many betrayed, so many broken hearts. There were children I had seen in strollers grow up to carry .38 revolvers . . . And there were so many innocent dead, forgotten maimed, so many idealists corrupted and so much good gone wrong.” Viewed in this context, the massacres perpetrated by Murphy and his gang lose their mythical proportions. While nothing excuses the murder of 23 innocent people, still less the sadistic manner in which the murders were committed, the truth is that men were killing each other throughout Ireland and the Shankill Butchers distinguished themselves primarily by the cruel way they went about it. The IRA, writes Dillon, “refuse to accept that their actions . . . breed an atmosphere in which gangs such as the Shankill Butchers develop and thrive.” If we examine the Pyramid of Hate used by the Anti-Defamation League, we see that violence doesn’t consist of just the most vicious acts inflicted on others. Those acts are made possible at the most basic levels by name-calling, stereotyping, and insensitivity to the humanity of our enemies. Hatred is always rooted, first and foremost, in a lack of empathy. Dangerous groups that hope to inflict violence will begin by conditioning their members to view outsiders as inhuman. They paint their enemies as deviants, degenerates, and freaks who are corrupting the world with their presence and need to be eliminated. The truth is that there were good and bad people on both sides of the conflict, as there are in almost any conflict. But a community spiraling into violence will convince itself that it is pure and incorruptible, untainted by evil in motivation or execution, while its enemies seek only to destroy it. Studies have shown that the number one instigator of violent aggression in a group is a feeling of self-righteousness. Towards the end of the documentary Shankill Butchers , journalist Stephen Nolan interviews psychologist Geoffrie Beattie, who grew up in a Protestant enclave with Jim “The Bomber” Watt, who would later become a notorious member of the Butchers gang. “You’ve been there, in a gang,” says Nolan. “And then of course, as a psychologist you must have an understanding of the weaker members of a gang, and that leader having a massive impact.” “Well, some of the weaker members of the gang,” says Beattie, “are bound into the gang. I think partly through fear. And what kind of fear is it? Well, partly fear of rejection. Because you’re much more vulnerable when you’re on your own. Now you might be very uncomfortable with what you’re doing at times, but the trauma of being rejected by the group just might outdo it. So you stay part of it. You do whatever he asks.” Perhaps this is why, even after his imprisonment for firearms possession in 1977, Murphy’s gang continued to roam the back alleys of the night seeking bloodshed. Now led by Moore, the gang kidnapped and tortured Stephen McCann, a Queen’s University student, Joseph Morrissey, and Francis Cassidy, a dock worker. But they made their fatal mistake in the attempted killing of Gerald McLaverty, a young Belfast man whose family had recently left the city. Late on Tuesday, May 10, 1977, McLaverty was walking down the Cliffordville Road when the gang approached him, posing as policemen, and forced him into a waiting car. The victim was driven to a disused doctor’s surgery, where he was beaten with sticks, stabbed, and left for dead on a back entry. Unexpectedly, however, he survived until early morning, when a woman heard his cries for help and phoned the police. News of the assault was delivered to Detective Chief Inspector Jimmy Nesbitt, who had been tirelessly pursuing the Butchers since their inception. The survival of Gerald McLaverty proved to be the breakthrough moment in the case. Nesbitt had the recovering victim disguised as a police officer and driven around the Shankill area on May 18 in the hope that he might recognize his assailants. Within the next day each of the Butchers was hunted down and brought into custody. There followed a mass trial in which the murderers were collectively sentenced to over 2,000 years in prison. Ironically, the principal culprit was never charged in connection with the case. Lenny Murphy completed his sentence for firearms possession in July 1982 and was gunned down in November. He had just pulled up outside of his girlfriend’s house, where he was now hiding to evade police capture, when two IRA gunmen emerged from a black van and opened fire. Ironically, although Catholic nationalists claimed responsibility for the murder, they were given the details of Murphy’s location and movements by Protestant UVF members. He bled to death in the upper Shankill, just around the corner from where the gang had dumped the bodies of many of its victims. But in death, even Lenny Murphy attracted mourners. His Aunt Agnes wrote, “Nothing could be more beautiful than the memories we have of you; to us you were very special and God must have thought so too.” On November 20 the murderer’s coffin was paraded outside his mother’s home in Brookmont Street by leading members of the UVF. Six masked gunmen fired a volley of shots over the coffin, and the police were prevented from arresting them by a ring of black taxis which sealed off the street from the Shankill. As the procession moved slowly down Shankill Road, a lone piper played the hymn, “Abide with Me.” He was given a hero’s funeral, and his tombstone reads, “Here Lies a Soldier.” And, even after the signing of the Good Friday Peace Accords in 1998, some in the Shankill community continued to honour the butchers as fallen heroes. “Is that what people really thought about the Shankill Butchers?” asked the daughter of Joseph Morrissey when she became caught up in a vast funeral procession for a dead butcher. Trapped in her car by the mourners, unable to get away, she watched the coffin pass with tears in her eyes. “I can’t tell you how I felt, but for me, the message was: he was a hero. The man who cut my father to pieces and tortured him for three hours was a hero.” Today, not one of the Shankill Butchers is in prison.

Death is a natural conclusion to all life, yet when it claims our beloved entertainment icons, disbelief often follows. From John Lennon to Jim Morrison and Elvis Presley, their passing leaves an indelible mark, reminding us of their lasting impact Artists Jean-Marie Delbes and Hatim El Hihi have recreated a number of well known album covers with deceased band members removed. (Some will need to be updated, sadly)

Imagine two men in heavy canvas coats and metal face masks, standing ten paces apart, pistols in hand. Instead of the hush and horror of an 18th century duel they were met with the clack of elaborate triggers and the soft pop of wax slugs. For a fleeting moment around 1908 the old ritual of honour was reinvented as spectacle and sport, duelling with wax bullets. This curious chapter in the history of shooting lives at the crossroads of aristocratic ritual, turn of the century spectacle and budding modern pastimes. It looked dramatic, it promised risk, and it was deliberately theatrical: the stakes were pride not life. But it was not harmless, and its rise and fall tell us something about changing attitudes to violence, modern sport and safety. Note the handguard on the pistol’s grip to shroud the shooter’s exposed hand . What was wax bullet duelling At the start of the 20th century a handful of shooting clubs in France Britain and the United States promoted a new, non lethal version of pistol duelling. Competitors used specially adapted duelling pistols which fired wax bullets rather than lead. To reduce velocity gunpowder was drastically reduced or omitted and only the primer or a very small charge propelled the soft projectiles. Shooters wore heavy protective clothing and a metal helmet often fitted with a glass plate for eye protection. Pistols sometimes had guards to shield the fingers. The visual was both familiar and strange. It echoed the choreography of honour duels, the measured pace the steps the formalities, while turning what had once been a deadly ritual into a kind of staged combat sport. Matches could be treated as skill contests or as jokey public entertainments where a man might be “theoretically pronounced dead” for comic effect after being struck. But the bullets though soft were not entirely benign. At close range or without proper covering they could break skin or inflict painful wounds and ricochets posed a real danger to bystanders. The Olympic confusion You will read variations of the same claim that pistol duelling was an Olympic sport in 1908. The truth is more nuanced. Pistol duelling as a competitive activity featured at the 1906 Intercalated Games and a version of it was demonstrated in London around the time of the 1908 Games as part of the wider atmosphere of exhibitions and sporting novelties. There were no official demonstration sports in the modern sense until later. So while wax bullet duelling rubbed shoulders with Olympic era events and received international attention it was not a medal event in the 1908 programme in the way many later sports were. Who tried it and what they said The craze originated in France where a Parisian School of Dueling and a number of enthusiasts championed the practice. The pistols and wax projectiles were developed and refined by figures including doctors and shooting aficionados who wanted a safer training method for duellists or an exciting new sport. Not everyone was enchanted. Walter Winans, a noted marksman and big game hunter of the period, who was associated with shooting circles in Britain, warned that the pastime was not without peril. He cautioned that wax slug shooting was risky for spectators and competitors alike remarking that “spectators might lose their eyes by a stray or ricochet bullet.” Whether offered as a challenge to chivalry or as a warning about inadequate safety the sentiment stuck. Journalists who tried the sport reported painful injuries including the loss of skin between thumb and forefinger when a shot landed on an exposed hand. Why it mattered then A few things made wax bullet duelling feel plausible around 1900. The culture of honour still lingered among certain classes. Technological tinkering with firearms and ammunition was common. Public appetite for novelty entertainments was high and exhibitions offered stages to demonstrate foreign sporting curiosities. The idea of simulating a ritual duel without killing the participants was simultaneously nostalgic and modern. In practice the novelty struggled with safety and uptake. The First World War changed attitudes to firearms and combat. Firearms technology and the brutal reality of modern war made mock duels seem oddly naïve. The sport faded and for most of the 20th century wax bullet duelling was a brief oddity to be recalled in magazine pieces and museum displays. The sports modern descendants If the wax bullet duels of 1908 feel familiar it is with good reason. Paintball and airsoft share a family resemblance. Those sports use soft projectiles require protective kit and have become global industries. But unlike paintball the early duels demanded the stylised etiquette of formal pistols and stage like procedure. Paintball emphasises mass action and fun; wax duelling emphasised duel protocol and one on one skill. A duelist protected against wax bullets, Lebouttellier, winner of the International Revolver Championship Wax bullets did not vanish. They survived as practical tools for training trick shooters fast draw competitors and even magicians. Fast draw competitions use wax bullets or balloon popping blanks to allow speed shooting without lethal risk. Magicians have long used wax slugs for bullet catch illusions. Wax projectiles also remain an affordable quiet training round for some shooting clubs. Safety and the lesson learned The story of bloodless duelling is not simply quaint. It is a reminder that technologies invented to reduce harm may introduce new hazards if adopted without proper thought. Heavy gear and helmets mitigated some risks but the soft projectiles could still hurt and the risk of stray shots made spectator safety problematic. The wax experiments also show how sport can serve cultural ends. By reimagining a lethal ritual as a sport the participants sought to domesticate violence, to turn honour into spectacle. That transformation was partial and temporary. The courts social norms and evolving laws made formal duelling obsolete and modern justice systems channel disputes into lawyers offices rather than gun salutes. Where you can still see the kit Museum collections and private collectors sometimes hold Lepage or similar wax bullet duelling pistols complete with masks and wax cartridges. Online collectors sites and a number of specialist firearms blogs and videos explain how these pistols were constructed and how the wax projectiles were formed. They make for an arresting museum display because they sit at the interface of craft making sport and ritual. Sources Atlas Obscura Wax Bullet Duels Were the Paintball Fights of 1909 https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/wax-bullet-duels-were-the-paintball-fights-of-1909 Mental Floss Bullet Time When Pistol Dueling Was an Olympic Event https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/646824/when-pistol-dueling-was-olympic-event Ripley s Believe It or Not Bloodless Dueling in the Olympics With Wax Bullets https://www.ripleys.com/stories/bloodless-dueling-wax-bullets Forgotten Weapons Lepage Wax Ball Dueling Pistols https://www.forgottenweapons.com/lepage-wax-bullet-dueling-pistols/ TopendSports Pistol Dueling at the 1908 Olympic Games https://www.topendsports.com/events/demonstration/dueling-pistol.htm

The wonderful people over at Pop Sonnets have spent so much time putting a old spin on modern songs. They're absolutely wonderful.

The subject of the First World War evokes many images, many of which are used repeatedly nowadays in film and TV, but they tend to concentrate on the drama and the misery of war. The reality was that it didn’t rain every day, the trenches were not knee deep in mud all year round, and soldiers were not subjected to shelling and death every day of their lives. In fact, day-to-day life was, as one veteran expressed “90 per cent sheer boredom and 10 per cent fear, but when we were frightened, we were very frightened, though you tried not to show it”. Certainly, death and destruction were present, as they typically are in times of war. However, these soldiers were youthful, dynamic, and notably hopeful. Most of them were convinced that nothing grave would befall them, always thinking that bad things would happen to someone else. To cope with their anxiety, they confided in their intimate friends, sharing their struggles and apprehensions. Numerous veterans have shared their reflections on their experiences in the First World War, expressing a blend of nostalgia and fondness, along with sorrow for fallen comrades. Their quintessentially British sense of humour played a crucial role in maintaining their perspective and resilience during difficult times. Even in the darkest moments, their ability to find humour shone through, as they often recounted amusing anecdotes to us. Their extensive use of songs and slang provided much of the entertainment. Like in any profession, soldiers had their own language that was difficult for outsiders to understand. During the years 1914-18, a significant change occurred in Britain as men from various backgrounds were enlisted in a large citizen army, leading to the creation of a unique language among them. Unlike previous times when military slang stayed within the ranks, a large portion of it was brought back home by soldiers returning from the western front during the First World War. Beyond its immediate effects on politics and geography, WWI also left a lasting imprint on the English language, especially through the slang used by British soldiers, affectionately known as "Tommies." Remarkably, many of these expressions have endured, seamlessly integrating into everyday vernacular. Let's explore some of these enduring phrases and their origins from the trenches of the Great War. 1) ‘Having a chat’ An everyday saying we use now originates from the harmful insect known as the louse. During wartime, body lice were prevalent in the trenches, living in the folds and creases of clothing, multiplying rapidly, and leading to skin irritations and itching. The expression is often ascribed to the Hindi word for a parasite, ‘chatt’, but is more possibly from an earlier medieval English word for idle gossip, ‘chateren’. Soldiers in the Napoleonic Wars certainly referred to lice as ‘chats’. During the Great War it was common to see small groups sitting around and talking as they used their fingernails, or a candle, to kill the lice. Such groups were described as men who were ‘chatting’. 2) ‘Plonk’ The now almost universal word for a bottle of wine. The British soldier has traditionally failed since time immemorial to master the pronunciation of even the simplest foreign words, and it is merely mispronunciation of the French ‘vin blanc’. 3) ‘Pillbox’ Before the war began, a number of small defensive military fortifications known as blockhouses had been built. These structures were predominantly made of sturdy timber, with a significant amount of them being erected during the Boer War. However, the term was only widely adopted into English during the latter part of the Great War because of the huge numbers of concrete bunkers constructed by the Germans across the flooded Flanders battlefields. They were called pillboxes due to their similarity to the small receptacles used by civilians for carrying medication. 4) ‘Blighty’ The mysterious origins of this word, now widely used in British English, remain unclear. It may have come from the Arabic ‘beladi’, meaning ‘my own country’, or the Hindi word ‘bilaik’, referring to a foreign place or country. For the Tommies, it meant only one thing: home. The best possible way to get there was to sustain a wound serious enough to require hospitalisation in England, which was enviously termed ‘a Blighty one’. 5) ‘Third light’ There was a belief that lighting a third cigarette from the same match brought bad luck. This superstition stemmed from a practical reason: German snipers could spot and target a light source, like a flaring match, in about five seconds at night from a distance of over 500 yards. Consequently, the time it took for the third person to light their cigarette was also around five seconds. 6) ‘Tank’ Fosters of Lincoln produced the first modern armoured fighting vehicles discreetly, keeping their purpose hidden from German spies by informing workers that they were actually mobile water tanks. Some were even clearly marked in Cyrillic ‘Water tanks for Russia’. The ruse certainly worked, because their first use on the Somme on 15 September 1916 was a complete surprise to the Germans. 7) ‘Sniper’ Before the outbreak of the First World War, armies utilised specialised marksmen called 'sharpshooters'. However, the Germans introduced thousands of highly trained riflemen equipped with telescopic-sighted rifles when the war began. These soldiers were commonly referred to as 'snipers' by British officers, a term that originated from the army's activities in India during the late 18th century, where officers engaged in bird hunting in the hills, with the Snipe bird being one of the most challenging targets to hit. Starting from 1914, the term 'snipers' gained widespread usage in the British press and has since been universally accepted. Today, 'sniping' can also encompass making sharp or sarcastic remarks about another individual. 8) ‘Over the top’ An example of an expression that has seen a resurgence, although now with a very different meaning. Originally it referred to the physical act of launching an attack by climbing over the sandbag parapet in front of a trench – literally by going over the top. It thus became synonymous with setting off on any highly dangerous venture, usually with a slim chance of survival. It mostly died out after the war but in recent years has been revived, albeit now meaning to embark on a course of action or to make a remark that is either excessive or unnecessary. 9) 'Shrapnel’ Often used today as a reference to the annoying, and all-but-worthless small change that accumulates in one’s pockets or purse. It is possibly the most incorrectly used word from the war, as it is invariably misapplied to describe the lethal flying splinters from high-explosive shells. In fact, it refers to the lead balls launched from airburst shells (a little like airborne shotgun cartridges) invented by Lt Henry Shrapnel of the Royal Artillery in 1784. 10) ‘Bumf’ Printed paper that is produced in huge quantities for no discernable reason, and apparently has no information value. The junk mail we all receive on a daily basis is a prime example. It is derived from the army term ‘bum-fodder’ – paper that has only one possible practical use. It is originally from prewar schoolboy slang then appropriated by the soldiers to refer to excessive paperwork. It generally referred to the endless streams of army orders that were issued from headquarters. During a fierce attack on the Somme, a British orderly officer was bombarded with messages from headquarters, asking about the quantity of tinned jam in storage and the number of pairs of socks needed. #ww1 #slang

In the grand arena of Roman chariot racing, no name looms larger than that of Gaius Appuleius Diocles. His rise to prominence as one of the most successful athletes in the Roman Empire has not only been immortalised in historical records but also cemented his status as one of the wealthiest sportsmen of all time. His fame and fortune make him a subject of fascination even today, with comparisons frequently drawn between his earnings and those of modern athletes. Early Life Gaius Appuleius Diocles was born in 104 CE in Lusitania, a Roman province located in what is modern-day Portugal. Little is known about his early life, but it is believed he was born into a family of modest means, with no apparent ties to the wealthy patrician class or any particular influence within the racing circuits. His humble origins, however, would serve to highlight the extraordinary trajectory of his career. Chariot racing, one of the most popular sports in Ancient Rome, was a perilous pursuit. The races took place in vast arenas, the most famous being the Circus Maximus in Rome, which could hold an estimated 150,000 spectators. The sport attracted massive crowds, enormous sums of money, and intense rivalries between the racing factions (or teams) known as the Reds, Whites, Blues, and Greens. Diocles, initially racing for the White faction, would later switch allegiances to the Greens and finally to the Reds, where he found his greatest success. Career and Success Diocles began his chariot racing career at the age of 18. As a novice, his talents were quickly recognised, and he rapidly ascended through the ranks. His transition from the White to the Green faction marked a significant step in his career, but it was with the Red faction that he truly became a household name across the Roman Empire. Diocles raced for 24 years, an extraordinary length of time for a charioteer. The average career of a Roman charioteer was fraught with danger, and many racers met early deaths from crashes and injuries. The fact that Diocles not only survived but thrived for over two decades speaks to his exceptional skill, resilience, and perhaps a degree of luck. During his career, Diocles participated in 4,257 races, a staggering number considering the perilous nature of the sport. He won 1,462 of these races, amounting to a victory rate of over 34%. His success was not only a product of his mastery of the reins but also of his strategic acumen—Diocles was known for his ability to close out races in the final moments, coming from behind to snatch victory from his competitors. The Fortune of Diocles Diocles’ triumphs on the racetrack were not only celebrated with fame but also with enormous financial rewards. Roman charioteers, especially the most successful ones, were lavishly compensated for their victories. However, Diocles’ earnings eclipsed those of his peers, solidifying him as not just the greatest charioteer but one of the wealthiest individuals in the Roman Empire. By the time he retired at the age of 42, Diocles had amassed an astonishing fortune of 35,863,120 sesterces. To put this in perspective, a Roman legionary soldier at the time earned about 900 sesterces per year. Diocles’ earnings were equivalent to the annual salary of more than 39,800 legionaries, or roughly the cost to supply grain for the entire city of Rome for an entire year. The Modern Equivalent When adjusting for inflation and economic changes, estimating the modern equivalent of Diocles’ fortune is complex. However, some estimates place his earnings at approximately $15 billion (around £11.6 billion) in today’s terms. This immense figure dwarfs the earnings of modern athletes, even those who are considered the highest-paid in the world. For comparison, Lionel Messi, one of the top-earning athletes in 2023, took home approximately $130 million (£101 million) that year, from a combination of his salary, endorsements, and sponsorships. Similarly, LeBron James earned around $119 million (£93 million) in the same period. While these figures are monumental in today’s economy, they pale in comparison to Diocles’ earnings when adjusted for historical context. In fact, Diocles’ fortune makes him arguably the highest-paid athlete in history, even surpassing modern sporting giants such as Michael Jordan or Floyd Mayweather. The Legacy of Diocles Diocles’ legacy extends far beyond his remarkable earnings. He remains an enduring symbol of what can be achieved through talent, determination, and a bit of luck. His success represented more than just personal achievement; it demonstrated the societal importance of chariot racing in Ancient Rome. Chariot races were not mere entertainment but a powerful form of social and political expression. Victories in the circus were celebrated with religious fervour, with the winning charioteer seen as a representative of divine favour. In this context, Diocles was not just an athlete but a cultural icon. Even today, scholars and sports historians look to Diocles’ career as a testament to the role of sport in ancient societies and the rewards that came with success at the highest level. His story also illustrates the precarious nature of athletic careers, both ancient and modern, where fortune and fame often come at a heavy physical cost. Though there are no known surviving portraits or statues of Diocles, his name is inscribed in historical records and on monuments dedicated to chariot racing, including the famous inscription at the Circus Maximus, which chronicles his victories and his staggering wealth. Chariot Racing: A Dangerous Sport The life of a charioteer was fraught with peril. Races involved teams of horses pulling lightweight chariots at tremendous speeds around a track. The tight turns and chaotic nature of the races often led to catastrophic crashes, known as naufragia . Competitors were regularly thrown from their chariots, trampled by horses, or crushed beneath the wheels of rival chariots. Charioteers faced a grim reality: a single mistake could lead to death or severe injury. To mitigate the dangers, some charioteers tied the reins around their bodies, enabling them to control the horses more effectively. However, this method also made it more difficult to escape if their chariot overturned or crashed, often resulting in fatal consequences. Despite the risks, chariot racing was a path to immense wealth and fame for those who could master the craft, as Diocles demonstrated. Comparing Diocles’ earnings to those of modern athletes serves as a reminder of how lucrative sports have been for millennia. While today’s top athletes enjoy vast riches and global fame, Diocles’ accomplishments suggest that the concept of the sports superstar is not a modern invention but has deep historical roots. Though over 1,800 years have passed since Diocles raced in the Circus Maximus, his legacy as the wealthiest athlete in history remains largely unchallenged. His story exemplifies the timeless allure of sports, where talent and risk can lead to extraordinary success. #highestpaidathlete #Diocles #chariot

Clad in elegant suits and ties, with their top hats tilted towards the camera, these individuals appear to be posing for high-end portraits. However, beneath their polished exterior lies a sense of guilt reflected in their eyes, concealing the dark and serious crimes that were handled by law enforcement officers during that era. These images capture the mugshots of Australian convicts from the 1920s and 1930s, recently revealed by Australia’s Justice & Police Museum. The museum has released an extensive collection of 2,500 photographs, offering a window into the dark yet captivating world of early 20th-century crime in Australia. These images, showcasing female criminals including murderers, bigamists, bootleggers, and prostitutes, provide a rich historical narrative and a glimpse into the lives of those who walked the thin line between respectability and infamy. The “Special Photographs” Most of these “special photographs” were taken in the cells at the Central Police Station in Sydney. Unlike traditional mugshots that portray a stern and unflattering view, these images possess a unique charm and an almost artistic quality. As curator Peter Doyle explains, these photographs capture “men and women recently plucked from the street, often still animated by the dramas surrounding their apprehension.” Doyle suggests that the subjects of these photographs were allowed, or perhaps even invited, to position and compose themselves as they liked. This freedom resulted in images where personal style and individuality shine through, providing a potent mix of inborn disposition, personal history, learned habits, and chosen personal style. The photographs capture not just the physical appearance of these individuals, but also a sense of their character and the era they lived in. A Glimpse into the Past The meticulous composition and excellent quality of these images make them stand out. They offer more than just a record of criminal activity; they are snapshots of a bygone era, capturing the fashion, attitudes, and social dynamics of the time. Each photograph tells a story, not just of crime and punishment, but also of human complexity and societal norms. The images of these convicts, dressed impeccably and often looking directly into the camera with a mix of defiance and vulnerability, challenge our perceptions of criminality. They remind us that behind every crime, there is a human story, often as complex and multifaceted as the individuals themselves. Historical Significance The release of these photographs by Australia’s Justice & Police Museum is significant not only for their historical value but also for their contribution to our understanding of early 20th-century society in Australia. They provide a rare and intimate look at the lives of people who lived on the fringes of society, offering insights into the conditions that led them to crime. These images are not just mugshots; they are portraits of an era, reflecting the tumultuous times and the often harsh realities faced by individuals caught in the grip of poverty, desperation, and circumstance. They also highlight the role of law enforcement and the justice system in shaping public perceptions of crime and morality. Alfred Ladewig, otherwise known as Tiny, was a trickster and pickpocketer who would travel from Brisbane through Sydney and down to Melbourne to make money Patrick Riley (alias Matthew Edward Riley) was convicted in October 1924 of making counterfeit coins, and of having a coining instrument (ie a mould) in his possession, for which he was sentenced to two years imprisonment with hard labour. Cross-dressers Neville McQuade, 18 (left) and Lewis Keith, 19, (right) were believed to have been scamming gay American servicemen during WWII Albert Stewart Warnkin is listed in the NSW Police Gazette of 10 November 1920, as charged with attempting to carnally know a girl eight years old. No entry is found for Beutler, whose picture is inscribed ‘wilful and obscene exposure’. Thomas Craig, Raymond Neil (aka “Gaffney the Gunman”), William Thompson and FW Wilson. 1928.This photograph was apparently taken in the aftermath of a raid led by Chief Bill Mackay on a house at 74 Riley Street, ‘lower Darlinghurst’. Numerous charges were heard against the 15 men and women arrested. It was a house frequented by ‘reputed thieves’. Crime: murder. Eugenia Falleni spent most of her life masquerading as a man. In 1913 Falleni married a widow, Annie Birkett, whom she later murdered. The case whipped the public into a frenzy as they clamoured for details of the ‘man-woman’ murderer. Aged approximately 35. William Stanley Moore was an opium dealer and wharf labourer and was arrested in May 1925 Joseph Messenger and Valerie Lowe were arrested in 1921 for breaking into an army warehouse and stealing boots and overcoats to the value of 29 pounds 3 shillings. The following year, when this photograph was taken, they were charged with breaking and entering a dwelling. Those charges were eventually dropped but they were arrested again later that year for stealing a saddle and bridle from Rosebery Racecourse. As an adult Messenger was active in inner-Sydney underworld through the 1920s, and he appears in the NSW Criminal Register (16 July 1930 entry no 171) as a seasoned criminal and gang affiliate. The description of his modus operandi includes, ‘Violently [resists] arrest…frequents wine saloons, billiard rooms, and racecourses … consorts with prostitutes’. This photograph shows Messenger at age 18. De Gracy and Edward Dalton, 1920.A cropped print of this photograph appears in a police photo book from the 1920s, annotated in pencil “magsmen”, with no further information offered. Harry Williams was sentenced to 12 months of hard labour in March 1929 for breaking, entering and stealing. Murray/Williams’ entry in the NSW Criminal Register, April 30 1930 describes him as a housebreaker and thief, whose MO includes ‘[breaking] leadlighted door or windows or [forcing] the fanlights of dwelling houses during the absence of tenants’. He ‘disposes of stolen property to patrons of hotel bars or to persons in the street … professing] to be a second-hand dealer’. Although he ‘consorts with prostitutes’ and ‘frequents hotels and wine bars in the vicinity of the Haymarket’, he is described as being of ‘quiet disposition’. Gilbert Burleigh on the left is identified as a ‘hotel barber’, and Delaney‘s picture is labelled ‘false pretences & conspiracy’. A companion photograph makes it clear that in fact, Delaney was the hotel barber – meaning one who books into a hotel, boarding house or residential and robs (or ‘snips’) fellow patrons, usually in the dead of night. In this instance, Delaney was charged with stealing a cigarette case, a hairbrush, a clock and a quantity of clothing from a dwelling-house. A month later he was further charged ‘being about to abscond from bail’. He is described as ‘a fireman and a returned soldier’. Mug shot of William Cahill, 30 July 1923, Central Police Station, Sydney. Details unknown. An entry in the Supplement to the NSW Police Gazette Sydney for Skukerman, (alias Kukarman, alias Cecil Landan) is captioned ‘obtains goods from warehousemen by falsely representing that he is in business’. “Silent Tom” Richards and T Ross, alias Walton, 12 April 1920, presumably Central Police Station, Sydney. George Whitehall, carpenter, handed himself into Newtown police after hacking to death his common-law wife, Ida Parker on Thursday afternoon 21 February 1922, at their home in Pleasant Avenue, Erskineville. This photo was apparently taken the following morning at Newtown Police Station. No entry for Fiori/Permontto is found in the NSW Police Gazette for 1924, although this photo appears in a later photo supplement, in which Fiori is described as a safebreaker. Walter Keogh appears in the Photo Supplement to the 1923 NSW Police Gazette (7 February Group 1 p. 4) identified as a pickpocket, and later in 1928 (26 December, Group 4 p. 15) as a ‘suspected person and bogus land salesman’. Thomas Bede, 22 November 1928. Captioned: ‘This man refused to open his eyes’. Alfred John (or Francis) West. 1922.West is mentioned in the NSW Criminal Register as a ‘pickpocket and spieler’. Walter Smith is listed in the NSW Police Gazette, 24 December 1924, as ‘charged with breaking and entering the dwelling-house of Edward Mulligan and stealing blinds with a value 20 pounds (part recovered)’, and with ‘stealing clothing, a value of 26 pounds (recovered) in the dwelling house of Ernest Leslie Mortimer.’ Sentenced to 6 months hard labour. A picture of Sidney Grant (alias ‘Pretty Sid’) appears in the ‘Criminal Photographs’ section of the New South Wales Police Gazette, 2 May 1923 captioned ‘Confidence man (notes for gold)’. Hampton Hirscham, Cornellius Joseph Keevil, William Thomas O’Brien & James O’Brien. 1921.The quartet pictured were arrested over a robbery at the home of bookmaker Reginald Catton, of Todman avenue, Kensington, on 21 April 1921. The Crown did not proceed against Thomas O’Brien but the other three were convicted and received sentences of fifteen months each. Details surrounding this particular photograph are unknown, but Sidney Kelly was arrested many times and much written about in newspapers during the 1920s, 30s and 40s. He was charged with numerous offences including shooting, and assault, and in the 1940s was a pioneer of illegal baccarat gaming in Sydney. This image appears in the Photo Supplement to the NSW Police Gazette, 26 July 1926, p. 6 captioned, “Illicit drug trader. Drives his own motor car, and dresses well. Associates with criminals and prostitutes”. Harold Price was a thief and gunman. This photograph was taken after he was was arrested and charged with committing robbery under arms at a house in Randwick, Sydney, for which he was sentenced to two years hard labour. The handwritten inscription on this unnumbered Special Photograph reads ‘Frederick Edward Davies stealing in picture shows and theatres Dets Surridge Clark and Breen Central 14-7-21’. Police held sneak thieves in particularly low regard, which may account for the decision to photograph Davies in front of the police station’s toilet stalls.

In the annals of automotive history, the 1908 New York to Paris car race stands as a testament to human ingenuity, endurance, and a bit of lunacy too. Spanning over 22,000 miles and traversing continents, this epic race captured the imagination of people worldwide, pushing the boundaries of what was believed possible in the early days of motoring. The race attracted a diverse array of competitors from around the globe, each eager to prove the capabilities of their automobiles and demonstrate the potential of this emerging technology. Among the notable participants were the American teams represented by the Thomas Flyer and the Zust, the Italian team in the Itala, and the German Protos team headed by a German aristocrat. On February 12, 1908, amidst great fanfare and media attention, the race commenced from Times Square in New York City. The route took the competitors through the snow-covered roads of America, across the frozen Bering Strait into Siberia, through the rugged terrain of Asia and Europe, and finally culminating in the grand finale in Paris, France. The race was slated to commence at 11 a.m., yet Mayor George McClellan, tasked with firing the starting pistol, was conspicuously absent. Growing restless, a bystander took matters into their own hands, seizing the pistol and firing it themselves, prompting the racers to embark on their journey. Ahead of the competitors lay vast stretches of unpaved roads, with many regions devoid of roads altogether. Teams often resorted to riding on locomotive rails, their cars fitted with balloon tires, covering hundreds of miles where roads were non-existent. The journey was fraught with challenges from the outset. One of the French cars made it less than a hundred miles before quitting due to a busted differential. Adverse weather conditions, treacherous terrain, and mechanical breakdowns tested the resilience of both man and machine. Yet, amid the adversities, there were moments of triumph and camaraderie. The American Thomas Flyer surged ahead, crossing the United States and arriving in San Francisco in a remarkable 41 days, 8 hours, and 15 minutes—a historic winter crossing. Along the way, they welcomed a new member, Hans Hendrick Hansen, who defected from a French car team after a duel challenge with his teammate resulted in his dismissal. The journey then led to Valdez, Alaska, by ship, where harsh conditions necessitated a reroute across the Pacific to Japan. From there, they navigated to Vladivostok, Siberia, to embark on the daunting transcontinental crossing. Following a thorough examination of the Alaskan terrain, George Schuster concluded that navigating it by automobile was impracticable. Consequently, race organizers abandoned the Bering Strait plan, initially the race's winter challenge, instructing the Americans to return to Seattle and embark on a Pacific voyage. The detour through Alaska provided an opportunity for competitors to narrow the gap. By the time the Americans regrouped in Seattle and embarked for Japan, their rivals had gained a significant lead. To rectify the disparity, organizers granted the Americans a 15-day allowance, enabling them to finish two weeks after their counterparts and still clinch victory. Additionally, the German team incurred a 15-day penalty for transporting their Protos car from Utah to Seattle via train. Navigating through the soggy plains of Siberia and Manchuria during the spring thaw proved arduous, with progress often measured in feet rather than miles per hour. In Vladivostok, the Americans closed in on their competitors. A French driver, having bought all available gasoline, sought refuge with other teams. Despite the Italians accepting his offer, his sponsor withdrew him from the race, leaving him disappointed. Undeterred, the racers forged ahead through the challenging terrain of Siberia, Manchuria, and Russia. The Germans held the lead, closely trailed by the Americans, while the Italians lagged thousands of miles behind. Despite the challenges, the Thomas Flyer triumphantly reached Paris on July 30, 1908, covering approximately 16,700 km. The race garnered international attention, with The New York Times providing daily front-page coverage. Its significance extended beyond the competition, affirming the automobile's reliability as a practical mode of long-distance travel and catalysing the demand for improved roads worldwide. George Schuster, the victorious driver, was later honoured with induction into the Automotive Hall of Fame on October 12, 2010. Today, the iconic Thomas Flyer and its trophy are showcased at the National Automobile Museum in Reno, Nevada, preserving the legacy of this extraordinary journey.

In the world of literature, where words wield the power to evoke emotions and transport readers to far-off realms, the dedication page is often an overlooked gem. Traditionally a space for authors to express gratitude or pay homage, it has evolved into a canvas for wit and humour, offering a delightful prelude to the narrative that follows. #funnybookdedications

In the evening of July 27, 1890, Vincent van Gogh returned to his small room at the Auberge Ravoux in Auvers-sur-Oise, located north of Paris. Upon hearing his distressing groans, the innkeeper discovered van Gogh in agony, doubled over due to a gunshot wound in his chest. The innkeeper, Ravoux, promptly called for the village doctor, and van Gogh asked for his own physician, Paul-Ferdinand Gachet, to be summoned as well. Following a thorough examination of the patient, the doctors agreed that removing the bullet was not feasible. Therefore, at van Gogh's behest, Gachet loaded a pipe, ignited it, and positioned it in the artist's mouth. Van Gogh smoked peacefully as the doctor sat by his side, displaying keen attention. Over the course of ten weeks in Auvers, the two had cultivated a close and affectionate friendship. After moving to Auvers on May 20, 1890, Vincent van Gogh's brother Theo arranged for Dr. Gachet, known for his expertise in homeopathy and nervous disorders, to look after Vincent during his recovery from the asylum in Saint-Rémy. Theo had been referred to Gachet by the painter Camille Pissaro, who recognised the doctor's fondness for artists. Gachet was well-connected within the art world, counting Cézanne, Pissarro, and other Impressionist painters among his friends, and he was an enthusiastic art collector himself. Additionally, Gachet was a talented painter and engraver who signed his works under the name Paul van Ryssel. With his red hair, Gachet also possessed an uncanny resemblance to van Gogh, which only fostered a stronger bond between the two men. Van Gogh noted to his youngest sister, Wilhelmina, "I have found a true friend in Dr. Gachet, something like another brother, so much do we resemble each other physically and also mentally." Tempering the rapport, though, was van Gogh's observation that the "eccentric" doctor suffered from "nervous trouble" just as serious as the artist's. But despite these initial reservations, van Gogh soon began visiting Gachet's home regularly, sharing multi-course meals and painting portraits of the doctor and his daughter. One of these portraits, titled the Portrait of Dr. Gachet , is among van Gogh's most famous paintings and emphasizes the physician's melancholic nature more than his medical expertise. Describing the portrait to Gauguin, van Gogh wrote the doctor possessed "the heartbroken expression of our time." Upon settling in his new environment, the artist's productivity experienced a significant increase. Some catalogues have even credited van Gogh with around 70 works created during his stay in Auvers. In correspondence with Theo and his sister-in-law, Jo, he expressed his admiration for Auvers, describing it as "deeply beautiful, truly representing the countryside with its unique and picturesque qualities." However, as July approached, signs of trouble started to appear in his letters and artworks. In a letter to Theo, van Gogh described several paintings of wheat fields "under troubled skies," expressing how easily he could convey feelings of sadness and profound loneliness. His anxiety may have been heightened by the news that Theo, his financial supporter, was facing challenges with his employers and contemplating starting his own business. This situation likely intensified van Gogh's increasing distress. Theo heard the news the next day and rushed to Auvers to be by his brother's side. Comforted by Theo's presence, van Gogh told his brother, "I wish I could pass away like this." They were among his last words. He died on July 29 at 1:30 a.m. A small group of friends and family attended his funeral, abundant with sunflowers. Among the mourners was Gachet, who spoke a few words. "He was an honest man . . . and a great artist," Gachet eulogised. "He had only two goals, humanity and art." In recent years doubt has been cast on whether the gunshot was self inflicted, according to the groundbreaking research of Pulitzer Prize-winning biographers Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith, the painter didn’t shoot himself: he was killed. When they first exposed this theory in their 2011 biography Van Gogh: The Life , it was viciously attacked and contested. Rewriting history is not an easy task. Now, in a article published in Vanity Fair , the writers substantiate even further their controversial theory, which challenges the deep-seated assumptions about the (now) revered Dutch artist. According to Naifeh and White Smith’s research, van Gogh was shot accidentally by a man called René Secrétan , who broke a lifetime of silence after seeing Vicente Minnelli’s van Gogh biopic Lust for Life (1956), in which the painter is depicted as killing himself in the woods surrounding the French town of Auvers, just outside Paris. Secrétan admitted to being the leader of a group of young troublemakers who took pleasure in drinking and harassing the tormented artist. While he never confessed to shooting van Gogh, Secrétan did acknowledge that he would dress up as Buffalo Bill and wield a faulty pistol obtained from the Ravoux Inn's caretaker, where the artist resided. According to Naifeh and White Smith, two days before van Gogh’s death (July 29, 1890), a stray bullet shot from afar hit the painter in the abdomen while he was out in the fields of Auvers. Because it didn’t hit his vital organs, it took over 29 agonising hours to kill him. None of the reports of his death mention the word suicide, only that he had “wounded himself.” No one admitted to having found the gun, and the doctors could not really make sense of his wounds. A few days before the shooting, van Gogh had placed a large order of paints, and on the morning of the day he died, he had sent an upbeat letter to his brother Theo, with an optimistic take on the future. Crucially, no suicide note was ever found. Why did the suicide version take such a strong hold, then? Well, it simply provided a more logical narrative. Van Gogh’s earlobe episode, which had happened two years earlier, plus his history of nervous breakdowns and alcoholism, made him the perfect artist maudit : a troubled, unpredictable, erratic genius. Even friends of the artist, such as the painter Émile Bernard, liked to sensationalise van Gogh’s exploits. “My best friend, my dear Vincent, is mad,” he told an art critic in 1889. “Since I have found out, I am almost mad myself.” The police investigated the death, but according to Naifeh and White Smith, no records survive. The suicide rumours, thus, provided a “better story,” and gained momentum throughout the 20th century by the sheer force of hearsay. Naifeh and White Smith's rendition does not change the reality of van Gogh's tragic and untimely death, which might have been preventable. However, it presents a fresh perspective on the artist: depicting him as an individual filled with aspirations, faith in his art, and whose demise was accidental.