Dear paul

Q My great great grandfather, Enoch Coates, was wounded in the Crimean War at Sebastopol. His death notice in the Lichfield Mercury, on Friday 9 December 1910, describes him as a “Crimean Veteran” and

There are many occupations described in historical documents or censuses that almost no one is gainfully employed doing any more. People my age may remember certain jobs that have gone by the wayside.

We’re all familiar with the opulence of the great ocean liners in all their glory: polished brass fittings, glittering dining saloons, and wealthy passengers promenading on deck. Yet far below, in a w

Q My ancestor, a pilot in Poole, had a son taken up by the press, and I’d like to know whether the son was let off, or whether he sailed away and never came back. I asked Dorset Archives some years ag

Dear Simon, I was particularly interested in Sylvia Lee’s item on Cope’s Pools in Yesterday Remembered (Pools Party, December). I worked at the company’s offices in Edmonton, north London in 1966-67.

The article on the battle against U-boats in the Second World War in the November issue omitted perhaps the most important episode. That was the part played by the late Joe Baker-Cresswell of Bamburgh