Discover wildly different courting customs and the origin of international wedding traditions

THE first billet-doux I ever received came from ...

In the early 1940s, the Royal Mint replaced the familiar image of a portcullis on the threepenny coin with a thrift plant. This was part of the government’s campaign reminding the public of the need f

My kitchen is filled with seemingly nondescript objects that mean a great deal to me: my mum’s wooden-handled fish slice and masher; her pans; the knives and forks I used while I was growing up; a tea

Dame Helen Mirren has been married to director Taylor Hackford for 28 years and the couple are thought to have one of the strongest mamages in Hollywood. Dame Helen, 80, credits their bond to them bot

I REMEMBER the first thing I ever knitted, even if I have no idea where it is now. It was a sew-together hat, made of some lurid, scratchy acrylic yarn with uneven edges and the occasional rogue hole