Peter Heppell. 24-years-old when Operation Thursday took place.

World history news… This just in from BBC News

To mark the 64th anniversary of VJ Day, one veteran has returned to the Burmese jungle, where he fought as part of the Chindits Special Force, to place a memorial.

Peter Heppell, from East Grinstead, West Sussex, had dreamed of a return to Broadway for most of his adult life, but his story does not involve theatrical performances or rapturous applause.

For him, Broadway represents time spent not in New York, but in the heat and danger of the Burmese jungle.

It was the code name for a secret landing site for a mission behind enemy lines that would lose him close friends, but play a vital role in achieving victory over the Japanese army during the final months of WW2.

Mr Heppell, then a sergeant in the Royal Engineers, was serving with the Chindits Special Forces, which were the brainchild of General Orde Wingate.

‘Laying ghosts’

The jungle clearing he knew as Broadway was used for Operation Thursday, a glider landing involving 9,000 Allied troops, which would see five months of fighting.

Read more of the BBC report here

And this year’s Angus & Dundee Roots Festival will be aimed at helping people throughout the local area find out more about their family’s history.

During the week of the Festival, which runs from Saturday, September 26, until Sunday, October 4, a variety of events will be taking place to assist family historians from near and far to discover more about their Angus and Dundee ancestors.

With events including genealogy workshops, guidance from local archivists, lectures from genealogy experts and a local history and genealogy fair, the Angus & Dundee Roots Festival will provide a wealth of opportunities for genealogists to find out more about their family in days gone by.

Read the rest of the report here

The gravestone of John and Priscilla Yeatman

Family History News… This just in from Emma Dewson

Family history sells. Websites designed to help you track your rellies or discover your Highland origins net millions in revenue each year. New Zealanders have embraced the search for their family’s past. We do the tours of the castles overseas; we walk the little lanes where ‘our settlers’ lived. We’ve got on board the genealogical bandwagon with a vengeance.

A couple of weeks ago I spent my sabbatical uncovering ways the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography (DNZB) can best carry out birth, death and marriage research for our newest biographies. We’ve discovered that the hardest part is bypassing privacy restrictions on recently living people – and those who fit within our current area of research and interest are people who died in the last decade or so. But online resources, such as the website of the Public Record Office in the United Kingdom, can now make our search easier.

Read more from Emma Dewson of Signposts – a blog about the encyclopedia of New Zealand

Don’t forget to help spread The Time Machine word to your friends, family, colleagues and online social network, It’s so quick and easy to do. If you have a Twitter account then simply click on the green Tweet button at the start of the page. You can also click on the “Share This” link below to flag up the page via email, Twitter (again), Facebook, Myspace, StumbleUpon, Digg and any of your favourite social media networks. Go on do it now, it only takes a few seconds. Thanks:)

Just to give you a taste of what Consett was like in the early days here’s an early written account from 1844 by Mr.John Calvert: “In passing the Highgate public house I witnessed a sight which was not uncommon in those days. In the lower rooms of the public house, there was not a table or chair but had its legs broken off, and these a number of mad, drunken fellows were wielding to some purpose on each other’s heads. The landlord, Mr.Moore, was in his shirt sleeves, and his arms, from his hands to his elbows, were just as though they had been dipped in blood. I have stood in my own doorway and counted a dozen fights all going on at the same time. The road in front of my house was, in winter, knee-deep in mud and in many places a horse was in danger of disappearing altogether.

“Parts of the houses in Puddlers’ Row were built; as were also one or two of the rows in the rear of what is now called Front Street. Two and three families were then living in each house. A railway, which had been laid along the side of the road, brought the stone from the common quarry to the houses. There was also a railway to the quarry at Carr House. A small engine was used for pumping the water out of it, and one night this was stolen, and it could never afterwards be found. Consett at that time was one of the wildest places to be found in the North of England.”

Consett grew to be the world centre for quality steel production until its sad (arguably politically orchestrated) demise in 1980.

Back in 1973 Brian, together with Sandy Brown, Jeff Walton and Bill Cheeseman, produced a rare single which until now had been lost. Brian has remastered the original and added visuals to create the video you see here.

Now over to Brian:

“Mention Consett to the world and the world relates to Consett Ironworks or Consett Iron Company.  A World leader in the art of iron and steel making.

“Along with its steel, the town of Consett and surrounding area has always been proud of the fact that when it comes to musical ability it can boast of many accolades on the entertainment front.

“The Consett Citizens Choir have recently just notched up a wonderful sixty years of entertaining, the first Salvation Army Brass Band was born in Consett and many of the members of the musical varieties offered, also worked at ‘The Works’.

“In the Sixties, as in many other towns the length and breadth of the country, ‘pop’ bands emerged and were wrapped up in the new musical revolution, with many band members moving on to the heights of mainstream show business.

“From this background of Consett’s musical history came four steelworkers who worked in various departments with the then called ‘Consett Iron Company’.

“Collectively they had an interest in ‘pop’, ‘folk’, and ‘country’ music. Jeff Walton (bass player/vocalist), Bill Cheeseman (Rhythm Guitar/vocalist), Sandy Brown (Vocalist/tambourine basher) and Brian Clough (lead guitar/vocalist) formed a band which they called ‘Country Life’.

“In total the band pioneered Consett’s musical attributes across the whole of the country between 1970 and 1983.

“In 1973 we recorded a song written by Sandy and myself of which only eight or ten copies were made as it was a self financing exercise and quite expensive at the time.

“The song initially called ‘The Consett Song’ (Sandy’s Poem) was originally in a poem type form written by Sandy and inspired by the place in which we all lived and worked.

“One of the ‘spare’ records (a 45rpm/ 7″inch single) became a regular feature on the jukebox in the Freemasons Arms public house in Consett Front Street.

“Almost forty years on, a copy has been found of the original record and with the help of modern technology, it has been remastered back to its original quality.

I’m proud to present it here, complimented by archive pictures of the halycon days of a great town with a remarkable industrial contribution to the world.”

Brian Clough.

Don’t forget to help spread The Time Machine word to your friends, family, colleagues and online social network, It’s so quick and easy to do. If you have a Twitter account then simply click on the green Tweet button at the start of the page. You can also click on the “Share This” link below to flag up the page via email, Twitter (again), Facebook, Myspace, StumbleUpon, Digg and any of your favourite social media networks. Go on do it now, it only takes a few seconds. Thanks:)

Michael McCormick - Photograph by Jim Harrison

If you have the slightest interest in history, then this article from the Harvard Magazine should have you spellbound!

Goelet professor of medieval history Michael McCormick (right) argues that now the written record of history meets genomics, evolution, demography, and molecular archaeology, can we discover why a million men vanished without a trace in Britain?

“There are no signs of a massacre–no mass graves, no piles of bones. Yet more than a million men vanished without a trace.

“They left no descendants. Historians know that something dramatic happened in England just as the Roman empire was collapsing. When the Anglo-Saxons ?rst arrived in that northern outpost in the fourth century a.d.–whether as immigrants or invaders is debated–they encountered an existing Romano-Celtic population estimated at between 2 million and 3.7 million people. Latin and Celtic were the dominant languages.

“Yet the ensuing cultural transformation was so complete that by the eighth century, English civilization considered itself completely Anglo-Saxon, spoke only Anglo-Saxon, and thought that everyone had “come over on the May?ower, as it were.” This extraordinary change has had rami?cations down to the present, and is why so many people speak English rather than Latin or Celtic today. But how English culture was completely remade, the historical record does not say…

This is an absolutely fascinating article (quite lengthy in internet form) click here to read the original. There is however, a nicely illustrated pdf of the complete article that you can download here.

1952 Jaguar C-Type Sports Racing Car.

An historic 1952 Jaguar C-Type Sports Racing Car driven to victory in 1952 by the legendary Phil Hill goes under the hammer in August.

Driver and car claimed the Jaguar C-Type’s first North American racing victory and will join the starting line-up for the RM Auctions Sports & Classics event, to be held in Monterey, California.

The rare C-Type, designated XKC-007, was one of just 53 examples built and one of the first Jaguar C-Types delivered to the United States. Shipped to New York in 1952, this example was immediately driven to Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, where it, along with XKC-009, made their competitive racing debuts as part of the company’s North American sales pitch for the model.
It was at this meet that XKC-007 made Jaguar history when the eventual World Champion driver, Phil Hill – then just 25 – drove it to victory in The Sheldon Cup. Phil went on to achieve further success at Torrey Pines that same year.

Racing legend Phil Hill drove the Jaguar C-Type to its first North American racing victory.

XKC-007 passed through the hands of numerous owners over the following years and was fully restored by noted Jaguar expert Terry Larson before making its way into the distinguished, private collection of Jerry and Kathy Nell in 1993 where it has remained ever since. Presented in period correct condition, it notably displays the signature of the great Phil Hill and retains its original, numbers matching engine. Throughout its racing career, XKC-007 was never crashed.

Back on home soil the Ford Model A is regarded as one of the most popular collector cars in the world.  Some half a million thought to have been restored, customised and preserved in the States, although comparatively rare in this country.

Ford Model A - circa 1930.

The newly-restored Model A owned by John Falder, MD of Manchester paint manufacturer HMG Paints, holds a special place in the history of the company and the city itself.

Dating back to September 1930, it is amongst the last Model As to have been built at Ford’s Trafford Park, Manchester plant, before production was transferred to Dagenham.

It first took to the road during the very same year that HMG was founded by Harold Marcel Guest and John’s grandfather, Herbert Falder. It also featured a unique contemporary ‘hatchback’ design, with a rear opening door to facilitate its use as a commercial traveller’s car.

“With our 80th anniversary coming up in less than two years, we thought we would restore it to its former glory and showcase our traditional-style automotive paints,” says John Falder.

The Model A was introduced as the successor to the previous Model T and differed entirely in styling and engineering from its predecessor, with a choice of 50 body styles and 40 paintwork colours, but not initially black. It was the first Ford to use a conventional set of control pedals, with three-speed sliding gear transmission, and featured hydraulic shock absorbers and welded steel-spoke wheels.

With sales booming, Henry Ford decided to establish his first factory outside of North America and acquired a disused tram works south of Manchester, at Trafford Park. By  1913 the plant boasted Europe’s first moving assembly line and by 1925, Trafford Park had built Britain’s 300,000th Ford, It continued to produce the Model A and other vehicles, until the Dagenham, East London plant opened in October 1931.

Registered on 27th September 1930, John Falder’s Model A, a 2-door Tudor Sedan, was thus one of the last Manchester-built models, featuring a different 2 litre engine to the US 201 cubic inch (3.3 litre) unit.