On the night of November 27, 1975, Britain was stunned by the shooting dead of household name celebrity, Ross McWhirter. He and his identical twin brother Norris created and compiled the world famous Guinness Book of Records in 1955 and both men appeared regularly on the BBC children’s show Record Breakers in the early 1970s….
Nearly forty years ago, an LGBT bookshop in London was raided by customs officials leading to a court case against nine directors and staff who faced over a hundred charges. This proved to be a landmark case, largely forgotten now. It advanced gay rights while also raising questions about censorship by the authorities. Key issues…
In the early 1980s, Glasgow University’s student union closed down its Gay Society. The explanation was that as the legal age of consent for same sex relations at that time was 21 – they couldn’t have a society encouraging men or women under 21 to have relationships with their own sex. They would be breaking…
In the early 1980s, I studied and worked in Liverpool at a time when there was stratospheric levels of unemployment, dire poverty, and faced with no prospects – men and women turned to sex work. In the Toxteth district, it was a daily fact of life to see women on the streets in both daylight…
In the 1970s and 1980s, youth unemployment skyrocketed among young Boomers born at the end of the 1950s and early 1960s – “late” Boomers if you want. Hundreds of thousands of young people were leaving school and months later had not found any work. The Labour government of Prime Minister James Callaghan in the late…
On April 19, 1995, the United States witnessed the worst single act of terrorism in its history. Just after 09:00 in the morning, a massive explosion ripped apart the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. This killed 168 people and injured 680. The building was left a hollow shell as if some gigantic…
For two years, I’ve been investigating the Jack the Ripper case – pouring over the original police and court records, as well as contemporary newspaper reports and other evidence. What I’ve uncovered will amaze you. On May 28, 2024 – I will reveal all in a new book: Jack the Ripper and Abraham Lincoln (Troubador…
June 1985 witnessed a vicious pitched battle between riot police and what were described as ‘New Age Travellers’ in the shadow of Stonehenge. An extraordinary level of violence was used by police against people who had turned up for a free festival at the ancient site. These festivals had been going on throughout the 1970s…
Two plastic balls linked by a skinny rope caused the most ridiculous moral panic at at the start of the 1970s. Clackers was a toy that, it was claimed, could leave you blinded or seriously injured. Very rapidly it went from being the must-have item in the school playground to a shunned and dangerous creation….
Nearly forty years ago, a police officer was hacked to death during a night of violence in north London. Police Constable Keith Blakelock stumbled during a riot on the Broadwater Farm estate and never stood up again. His neck was hacked at with a machete and knives with one report suggesting he lost fingers as…
