‘my great grandparents played an important role during the raj’

I’M up at my parents’ old house, surrounded by boxes of books. My mum was a voracious reader. You only had to see all the bookcases in her home to realise that. Many books were bought for her as gifts

My maiden name was Shenton, and for as long as I can remember I’ve had a fascination for names. I grew up in the Hanley area of Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, in a community that was deeply rooted in

KATIE HINDMARCH-WATSON describes a sex scandal that consumed Queen Victoria’s grandson On 7 July 1889, a policeman arrested a sometime telegraph boy, Henry Newlove, at his mother’s house in Camden Tow

THANKS FOR WRITING TO US, WE LOVE HEARING WHAT YOU THINK

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

These days, we associate autograph books with celebrities. But they originated in 16th-century Germany, where university students used to collect signatures from their classmates, and functioned as an