First stitches: holding a hook and reading a pattern
A plain guide to holding a crochet hook, making a first chain, telling the basic stitches apart and reading pattern abbreviations without losing your place.
Read the articleA town at war
The Home Front
War reached kitchens, mills, allotments, schools and committee rooms. Local records show practical compromises more clearly than grand summaries do.
Newest first
Stories in this section
Every piece links the visible memorial world to a record, a choice or a method.
High School Sports: Bowling, Track and Golf Seasons
A plain guide to American high school sports seasons: when bowling, track and field and golf begin, how tryouts and Baker format matches work, and what
Read the article
Shoreline crafts for the home workbench
A look at how coastal workshop habits, from plein air painting to shore clay and bench work, can shape decoration and making at home.
Read the article
Wild buckwheats for a dry garden
A plain guide to wild buckwheats: what they are, how to name one on a hillside, and which species a small dry garden can start with.
Read the article
Food queues and price complaints
Complaint books and Food Committee minutes show how Tadcaster handled shortages, queues and suspicion of profiteering.
Read the article
Exemption tribunals and hard choices
Tribunal records show how Tadcaster weighed military need, farm work, family hardship and conscience.
Read the article
Women who ran the memorial fund
Receipts, letters and committee minutes restore women’s fundraising work often hidden behind collective thanks.
Read the article
A voluntary hospital in a cotton mill
A mill converted into a hospital shows how local industry supplied beds, staff, water and practical order for wounded men.
Read the article
Ration books, kitchen economy and complaint
Ration books and household accounts show how coupons changed shopping, cooking and arguments about fairness in wartime kitchens.
Read the article
Allotments, ponies and public space
Allotment records and pony notices show how wartime Tadcaster turned parks, fields and animals into practical food systems.
Read the article
Schoolchildren collecting fruit and news
School logbooks show how children gathered fruit, scrap and news, turning classrooms into links between household and state.
Read the article