Culture UK
Who are the British? Do they really drink tea, eat roast beef and Yorkshire pudding and never leave home without an umbrella? Find out more about true Brits; past and present, myth and legend, fact and fiction.

London 1948: the Austerity Olympics
The 1948 London Olympic Games became known as the “Austerity Olympics”. No one tried to hide the fact the games would be delivered on a shoe-string budget. They embraced it enthusiastically and with pride. All participating British athletes even had to provide their own shorts…

The Curious History of Obstetric Forceps
Forceps have saved many lives; it is unfortunate to think of how many people could have survived if greed, sexism and classism hadn’t prevented their widespread usage…

Lady Florence Dixie
The aristocratic Lady Florence Dixie threw off the shackles of her Victorian upbringing and embraced a career as a war correspondent, feminist writer, traveller, campaigner – and first President of the British Ladies Football Club…

The Chorleywood Experiment: Give us this day our daily bread…
During the 1960s when US boffins were involved in some serious research into how to conquer space and deliver a man to the moon, 130 of the finest food scientists in ‘Good Ole Blighty’ were assembled for the Chorleywood Experiment…

The Birth of Forensics: Dr Buck Ruxton
The Moffat Ravine Murders: the chilling case of Dr Buck Ruxton and how it lead to great advances in forensic investigation…

The Mail Must Get Through…
A most unusual incident occurred on the night of Sunday 20th October, 1816. The mail coach from Devonport to London was on its regular route when suddenly, a mysterious creature leapt out of the darkness and attacked the team of horses…

Growing Up In Cardiff: A Wartime Childhood
Thomas Gareth Thomas was born in Cardiff on 13th July 1936 at 154 Inverness Place, Roath. Gareth’s most powerful childhood memories were of his childhood during the Second World War and the Cardiff Blitz…

History of London through the Lens of a Movie Camera
London is like an onion with layers and layers of history spanning back 2,000 years, meaning the most surprising buildings, ruins and memorials can often be found in the most unlikely places. And many of these hidden gems turn up in the movies…

Sheffield’s Greenwich Time Ball
Time, as the Hatter in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland knew, is relative. He claimed he was on such good terms with Time that he could live at any time he wanted. Time worked for him, not the other way round. As a genuine eccentric, he would probably also have enjoyed a curious time tradition that continues to the present day. That is, the sounding of a siren at precisely 1pm every day in the city of Sheffield in Yorkshire…