Joan Carter’s most memorable war stories centred on her time working in the NAAFI canteens. Her favourite involved her supervisor, who had taken a serious dislike to her, ordering her to shine the flo

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

Is this the age of dictators?” asked veteran journalist Sir Sidney Low. He was writing in September 1923, the month in which a military coup brought Miguel Primo de Rivera to power in Spain. At the sa

HAVING compiled many poetry anthologies for children, Fiona Waters is an experienced editor. However her new collection “A Corner of a Foreign Field: The Illustrated Poetry of the First World War” is

The Women’s Royal Naval Service (WRNS) was formed in 1917, and over 5,000 women were recruited by 1919. They were known as ‘Wrens’ and took on various roles from cooks to clerks, to electricians and w

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