SUMMER READING

The exams will soon be over so what will you do with all that time on your hands. How about some summer reading? Teachers and university lecturers up and down the land complain that students do not read. Prove them wrong. But what to read??? As a history student why not a history book? You could try something covering the history of the world in just 300 pages; or a whole book about just thirteen days. You can read about the end of history; or look at how the subject started in a very different way from today. You can look at a different type of history or read something for your A2 units. you can read a history mystery and go into a period you know nothing about. There is political history; economic history; social history. Even the history of the World Cup! So you have no excuse. Me, I'm looking forward to sun, sea, sand and "Bobby and J Edgar" by Burton Hersh.

LITTLE SHIPS

Summer is coming and long stretches of sandy white beaches in France look so inviting. But imagine being in such an exposed position in a war, being strafed by enemy planes. That was the fate of the British Expeditionary Force in 1940 trapped on the beaches at Dunkirk. This year we have been celebrating the 70th anniversary of one of the most powerful and poignant events in British history when 41 Royal Navy destroyers and over 600 other 'little ships' braved Channel weather and the Luftwaffe to rescue 338,000 British and French soldiers. 'Operation Dynamo' in reality was a tale of confusion and retreat and 5,000 deaths. But the courage of those Little Ships meant the BEF lived to fight another day.