Surviving the slums

There is something pleasant in the thought that joviality will reign to-morrow in such grim homes as London workhouses,” a reporter for the West Londoner wrote on Christmas Eve 1870. “There will be an

The term ‘Merseyside’ was coined around the end of the 19th century. In the county reorganisation of 1974 it became the official name for the area that encompassed the boroughs of Birkenhead, Bootle,

Reading Laura Mauro’s “Japanese Toilet Ghosts” [FT459:30-35], reminded me of a less well known fear in the Western world, which –according to the modern rabbinical Internet resource site TheTorah.com

You might be surprised to learn that there are more ghost sightings on Christmas Eve than there are at Halloween, so what better time for a ghost hunt? The festive season has always been favoured by l

It was a hot day in one of the hottest and most uncomfortable summers of recent years. I was standing in a small upstairs bedroom of a house on the outskirts of a modern estate in the borough of South

Did you know that Thomas Müntzer, leader of the German Peasants’ War in 1525, used a rainbow flag to rally his followers? It’s an aptly exuberant image for the radical charisma of Müntzer, and for the