A row has erupted over a plan to dig up a third of a million bodies from an historic east London cemetery to make way for a new Muslim burial site.
Tower Hamlets council in London is considering reopening the Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park in Mile End to answer a long-running campaign for a Muslim graveyard [...]

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On this Day

If you can not remember the ‘Battle of Lewisham’ don’t worry as you are probably in good company with the rest of this country’s population.
If you can remember the events of Saturday 13th August 1977 then you are probably either politically active on the left or right, a local historian specialising in south [...]

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FAMILIES were allowed back in their homes in East London last night (Tues) 24 hours after being evacuated after a 500lb unexploded German wartime bomb was unearthed on a building site close by.
But they will have to be evacuated again on Wednesday when an Army Bomb disposal unit returns to the site at Bethnal Green.
They [...]

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Giles MacDonogh is a bon viveur and a historian of wine and gastronomy, but in this book, pursuing his other consuming interest - German history - he serves a dish to turn the strongest of stomachs. It makes particularly uncomfortable reading for those who compare the disastrous occupation of Iraq unfavourably to the post-war settlement [...]

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New lessons in Indian history announced today are anti-British and expose 12- to 14-year-olds to the sexually explicit Kama Sutra, according to a curriculum association.
It accuses the Government’s curriculum advisers of a “politically correct” interpretation of Britain’s imperial past based on false claims about Winston Churchill.
The lesson plans published today by the Qualifications and Curriculum [...]

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The funeral of the last British serviceman to serve in both World Wars will be held on Thursday.
Captain Kenneth Cummins died aged 106. He served in the Royal Navy in World War I and the Merchant Navy in World War II.
Until his death at home in Great Bedwyn in Wiltshire, he was one of five [...]

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A Christian lobby group has claimed the wearing of red poppies is “politically correct” and stifles debate.
The director of Ekklesia, Jonathan Bartley, said people should be able to choose between red or white ones.
He added red poppies implied redemption through war, but Christianity seeks redemption through non-violence. White ones were created to symbolise [...]

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A RELIGIOUS group has sparked anger by calling for red poppies to be replaced by pacifist white ones.
It claimed the white emblems sold by peace campaigners were more Christian, while the red ones promoted and glorified war.
In the run-up to Remem-brance Day this Sunday, Jonathan Bartley, director of the religious think-tank Ekklesia, caused offence [...]

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[Maybe they could invite Ian Paisley and his friends to liven things up-ed]

For decades, smartly dressed veterans and servicemen and women in Wood Green, north London, have proudly packed their parish church for the traditional Remembrance Sunday service.
But this year there will be no such solemn ceremony at St Michael’s - because the vicar [...]

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A crowd of 11,000 watched 3,000 people re-enact the Battle of Hastings in Sussex on Saturday, with the same number expected to attend on Sunday.
Rebecca Milton, from English Heritage, said 8,000 places were pre-booked for Sunday and urged people to arrive early for the remaining 3,000 tickets.
Latecomers had to be turned away on [...]

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A cemetery is offering second-hand graves, with “refurbished” monuments including headstones, obelisks and crosses, to be used again.
Recycled burial plots, complete with the original memorials, still contain the remains of those who died at least 75 years ago - the names of the dead are simply scoured from the monuments to allow new inscriptions.
The [...]

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For almost 60 years, the evidence of Britain’s clandestine torture programme in postwar Germany has lain hidden in the government’s files.
Harrowing photographs of young men who had survived being systematically starved, as well as beaten, deprived of sleep and exposed to extreme cold, were considered too shocking to be seen.

As one minister of the [...]

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[Let me point something out here: Germany did not invade USSR until June 22nd 1941, but this book was printed in 1940 when USSR and Germany were still allies. Could this have been part of a wider preparation for an invasion of the UK by the USSR? Why would they need [...]

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[Will we see a photo of the King David Hotel bombing? (see below). It was a bombing attack against the British government of Palestine (now called Israel) by members of Irgun —a militant Zionist group. 91 people were killed, most of them civilians: 28 British, 41 Arab, 17 Jewish, and 5 other. Around [...]

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[This payment should have come from Japan - and not the UK government. I notice how they pay out when a lot of veterans have died of old age-ed]

More British civilians held by the Japanese during World War II will get compensation, the government has said.
About 300 former internees were denied payments as [...]

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Britain’s oldest World War I veteran Henry Allingham is “stable and doing fine” after being admitted to hospital with a chest infection.
Mr Allingham, who is 109, was admitted to Eastbourne District General in East Sussex on Sunday but is expected to be discharged within the next four days.
He had to pull out of [...]

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A “haunted” Elizabethan castle could be snapped up for the princely sum of £5,000 after being put up for sale by a council. The ivy-covered ruins of Llantwit Major Castle or “Old Place” in Llantwit Major, South Wales, will go under the hammer on April 3 at the Vale of Glamorgan Hotel. Bidders are being [...]

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A mental health charity has defended a statue it commissioned of Sir Winston Churchill in a straitjacket. The statue has been criticised as “absurd and pathetic” by his grandson, Tory MP Nicholas Soames.
Charity Rethink commissioned the 9ft high sculpture, unveiled in Norwich, to highlight the stigma of mental health.
Rethink said the image of Churchill - [...]

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People in the St Pauls area of Bristol say they are offended by the choice of name for a revamped area of the city.
The Bristol Alliance wants to rename Broadmead the Merchants’ Quarter, but for many the name has connotations with the city’s slave trading past.
St Paul’s resident Maryanne Kempf said: “I think [...]

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British historian David Irving has pleaded guilty in a court in Vienna to charges of denying the Holocaust.
The charges relate to a speech and an interview he gave in Austria in 1989 in which he denied the existence of gas chambers at Auschwitz.
Mr Irving, 68, faces up to 10 years in jail [...]

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