1972: BOOM as millions flash their new plastic. 1974: BUST Inflation and bailed out by IMF. When your work worries government ministers and MPs and generates the highest amount of correspondence The Times business section had ever received, it pays to have some strong backing to justify the meticulous verbalism. Especially when an attack dog […]

Did you ever have a bad day? I mean, a really, really bad day? Trapped in a 5,000-year-old tomb before being snatched out alive, turned a bad day into a great day for the victim and the rescuers. In western Cyprus, one particular September day was not only bad but could have been fatal…except for […]

Fossil hunters head for Britain’s terror bird beach Fossil hunters from around the world, armed with buckets and spades, are heading for Britain’s terror bird beach, where a local amateur collector discovered the skeleton of a flesh-eating bird. The metre-tall raptor ate its last meal 54 million years ago. The previously unknown flightless bird has […]

It was just another question posed at the English village community centre quiz night: “How many presidents of the United States have been assassinated?” Then, as fingers around the team tables counted up the most likely answer, the quizmaster revealed a long-held family secret that shocked the quizzers. One of his ancestors had assassinated a […]

The wartime journey began on the day Britain declared war against Hitler. From the Hebrides to the Cotswolds involved rowing a mile to the Isle of Mull, driving to the mailboat port and a three-hour sea crossing to Oban. Here, teenager Deborah Mitford and her travelling companions, a nanny goat, a whippet and a Labrador, […]

Farm rioters banished, flogged and treadmilled By Terry Walker | read time 4 minutes In 1831, riots, hayrick burning and vandalism erupted in the English countryside. Impoverished law-breakers, like farm labourer William Acres, age 22, were hunted down, dragged from their families and transported by convict ships 12,000 miles to penal colonies in Australia and […]