*I’ve blogged about this before When I googled ‘Eric Hobsbawm Memorial Lecture’ I came across a picture of the audience at the lecture that was given by Professor Richard Evans on 25 May 2016. Imagine my surprise when I noticed that the back of my head is very prominently visible in said photograph! That night Evans set out his new project, to write a biography of Eric (I cannot recall him ever referring to him as Hobsbawm). That (big) book is now available for all of us to read and was launched last week at an event called ‘Eric Hobsbawm: … Continue reading More Birkbeck, Eric Hobsbawm & Me*

Well let me tell you …. The biggest ‘gamble’ of my MA in European History, as one of my more traditional historian friends would describe it was picking a module called Public History in Practice with Dr Julia Laite.  I did pick this module predominantly for the right reasons, namely that I am interested in how history is presented and accessed by a wider audiences than those in educational settings or who might buy a history book in particular television history and genealogy.  I’ll admit there were two reasons, first, I have been in group lectures with Julia and at … Continue reading What does a Suffrage-TopTrumps-Type game have to do with studying history?

It was a rather chilly day and had rained for much of our tour of the town of Kronstadt in September last year.  Overall, the weather in Moscow and St Petersburg had been rather more pleasant that expected, but it … Continue reading Why Channel 5’s ‘Great Cathedrals’ should visit Kronstadt

Last night, I presented my MA thesis to a room full of academics, writers and the family of the late Eric Hobsbawm. It has led me to wonder, how on earth did I get here.  There is a simple answer – Birkbeck College and the return to formal education has quite simply changed my life. If you are happy to take that statement on faith and it encourages you to take a look at Birkbeck then my job here is done. If you need more convincing read on. Serendipity had it’s part to play in my story.  A chance meeting … Continue reading Birkbeck, Eric Hobsbawm & Me

I normally book my theatre trips towards the end of a run.  The penultimate day or the last day as you tend to get something extra special, the cast are on a crazy high and it impacts the audience in the best possible way.  I broke my rule to go and see The Seagull now showing at the Lyric in Hammersmith on day 2 and the audience definitely impacted on my enjoyment of the show. Before I bore you with the etiquette of theatre-going as I see it, lets start at the beginning.  I am a Chekhov fan. I came to … Continue reading I am a Seagull. No, no I am not.

Over the course of 2012 I attended various talks and public events to promote the newly published Just Send Me Word[1] by historian Orlando Figes. Occasionally there is a topic, a book or a theme that captures your imagination in a particular way that simply keeps you enthralled and coming back repeatedly to question it. By the fourth (and mercifully I imagine) final encounter we had over this book I was ready to ask the question that had kept me so perplexed and intrigued by this story for so long. Why had Lev and Svetlana retained their belief in a … Continue reading Love, loyalty & the history of emotions in Stalin’s Russia

Some personal thoughts on truth, memory, memoir & the Gulag.  Gratitude to Prof. Orlando Figes (who incidentally wrote a book about the Gulag ‘Just Send me Word) for suggesting some amendments that would surely improve this work, but that I have not yet been able to action.  In short it isn’t perfect. The truth is an ambiguous term. Even in the most conventional of circumstances one person’s understanding of what has happened may be different to the other participants. Add to this potential political motivation, emotional sentimentality and any other type of agenda and truth becomes a rather confusing term. … Continue reading Truth, memoir & the Gulag

On a freezing cold December one of the Partners that I work for asked me to pop down to McDonalds and see him. Honestly, I huffed and puffed about this, I didn’t want to go and have a meeting in stinky McDonalds when we have a perfectly good office here. Nevertheless, I put on my coat, scarf, gloves and hat (it was genuinely not very nice weather) and it turned out he just wanted to give me £100 as a Christmas present to thank me for my hard work.  What a nice man! It was slightly odd as he handed … Continue reading How Hedda Gabler helped me realise I should just buy more knickers

Google Image (also in the Almeida Theatre website) Cast your mind back to a dark, wet and dreary Thursday evening (23 Feb). Doris was her name and Doris almost created more drama than Shakespeare’s Hamlet and given that, to use my 11 year old son’s words “everyone is dead on the stage at the end – everyone, seriously is dead” then that is some accolade to good old Doris. I work in London, I live in London, and the Almeida Theatre is in London – a mere 20 minute tube ride followed by a 10 minute walk from Highbury & … Continue reading Storm Doris, Hamlet and Anne of Austria

Sometimes, really very occasionally a bibliophile like me comes across a writer who speaks to their soul. When I read The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak I knew I have stumbled across that writer.  I bought The Forty Rules of Love on the simple premise that I recognized the author’s name as Turkish.  I was only familiar with the writers that my Turkish father reads – mostly political, leftist and often biography.  My Turkish has never really allowed me to access these texts, so when I came across a Elif Shafak I thought why not. Not only was … Continue reading Faith and love in Istanbul and Oxford

It transpires that over the last few years a number of Anne’s have entered my life and so it seems apt that I would use Anne as my blogging moniker. First and foremost, I am half Turkish and my children … Continue reading How the name ‘Anne’ is inspiring me to broaden my modernist slant on history