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Back in February I was privileged to go to the University of California, Santa Barbara for the English Broadside Ballad Archive 25th Anniversary Conference, so here is my third post about my first ever trip to the States, of which I have some very fond memories! Day 2 started with yet more rain, pancakes, and…

Tickets are now on sale for our live performance of John Balshaw’s Jigge in Brindle on 17 June! We have a director, 6 actors and 2 musicians, and I’m really looking forward to it. The performance starts at 7pm with a short introductory talk, and the performance of the Jigge will follow at about 7.15pm.…

When I posted my first blog about the EBBA Anniversary Conference I didn’t anticipate such a long delay between first and the second, but I guess that sometimes life just gets in the way. Anyway, here is my second post about my first ever trip to the States, of which I have some very fond…

It’s difficult to believe, but this time last week I had just arrived in Santa Barbara for my first ever visit to the USA. I flew into LAX and caught the airbus shuttle up the coast. As we came out of LA, the heavens opened on a hailstorm, followed by a beautiful, vivid rainbow. It…

Over the last couple of days, preparations for the performance of John Balshaw’s Jigge in Brindle in June have really begun to get underway. I’ve printed out a stack of rehearsal scripts, and had a chat with the director. We went down to visit the community hall a few weeks ago and thought about how…

This year is the 50th birthday of Lancaster University’s Regional Heritage Centre, an organisation I’m proud to be involved with – I’ve mentored on their excellent FutureLearn MOOC, Lancaster Castle: the View from the Stronghold; I teach on their PGCert course; and of course I published John Balshaw through them a couple of years ago.…

As I write this, I’m sitting on a train going to London for an HA Historian editorial board meeting. It’s our first in person meeting in 3 years, since the beginning of the covid pandemic. It will be an interesting meeting, where we will be discussing where the magazine will be going over the next…

I have a new office. This is important, because it marks my transition to my permanent role in the History Department at Lancaster. In early February, I will be handing over the role of Administrator for the Social History Society to my successor so that I can concentrate on my 4-day teaching role but still…