On Friday I visited the German military cemetery at Cannock Chase. Holding the graves of more than 2,000 German and Austrian military and civilian internees from WW1, as well as nearly 3,000 WWII and other graves, it was a cemetery I didn't even know existed until earlier this year. The graves are laid out with slate-grey stone markers, many with four names to a stone, two on either side. I was specifically looking for the last resting place of Oberleutnant zur See, Walter Ed

I'll be taking 'Conflict of Interest to four different venues in the Midlands and South East England between this Saturday and next Thursday, in the run up to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The first venue will be the Rotunda Theatre at The BUXTON Festival Fringe at 2pm on Saturday, then The Guildhall in LEICESTER at 3pm on Sunday. This will be followed by an appearance at The Star Inn as part of the GUILDFORD Fringe Festival at 9pm on Monday 23rd, and finally to The Penta Ho

It was great to get hold of my own copy of Duckworth and Langmuir's book 'West Highland Steamers'. First printed in 1935, my copy is a third edition, from 1967. Listed in it is the S.S Dirk, the ship my great-uncle was serving on after it was requisitioned by the RNR(T) in 1917, and it has a rare photo of the vessel. The book describes how the Dirk had 'a very tall funnel which kept her going pendulum fashion when she rolled' so the owners tried to counteract this by fitting