History pieces free on Kindle May 18th - June 26th

May

18           The Unification of Italy

19           Socialism and the Early History of the British Labour Party

20           Why did the Allies win the Second World War?

21           The Cold War

22           Scotland and the Causes of the First World War

23           The Jacobites

24           The Protestant Reformation briefly explained
25            The Russian Revolution of 1917
26            Bonnie Dundee and the First Jacobite Rebellion
27            Votes for Women!
28            James IV: Scotland's Renaissance King
29            Hitler's Rise to Power
30            The Congress of Vienna Reassessed
31            An Introduction to the Renaissance

JUNE
1          Slavery and the Causes of the American Civil War
2          The Great Liberal Social Reforms 1906-1914
3          An Introduction to the Scottish Enlightenment
4          Bismarck and the Making of the German Empire
5          The Development of Democracy in Britain 1850-1918
6          The Causes and the Course of the First World War
7          Three Wise Men
8          Getting to know Edinburgh
9          The Unification of Italy
10        Socialism and the Early Years of the British Labour Party
11        The Cold War
12        Scotland and the Causes of the First World War
13        The "Glorious" Whig Revolution 1670-1720
14        The Place-Names of Scotland: A First Introduction
15        The Jacobites
16        The Protestant Reformation Briefly Explained
17        Slavery and the Causes of the American Civil War
18        An Introduction to the Scottish Enlightenment
19        The Causes of the Second World War and Appeasement
20        An Introduction to the Renaissance
21        Cockburn's Edinburgh
22        Hitler's Rise to Power
23        James IV: Scotland's Renaissance King
24        Why did the Allies win the Second World War
25        Votes for Women
26        The Jacobites

Introduction to "The Baker Street Irregulars"

Sometimes I found myself writing a play for our junior pupils. One year I wrote a Sherlock Holmes play. Here it is.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Baker-Street-Irregulars-History-Teacher-ebook/dp/B0861MNNL2/ref=pd_rhf_gw_p_img_9?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=7SSC8H8B9NR4F84N6ZW2

With school plays you have to write them for the available cast. (For that matter when choosing senior school plays and musicals you consider the resources available. My Henry V is now a professional rugby player.) In this case I knew that I had some child singers of a notably high standard. The thinking: Music hall songs --- Sherlock Holmes was easy; and the number of children in the cast made the Baker Street Irregulars obvious characters.

I always (with one exception) tried to give my plays a deeper theme than mere jolly fun. In this case I was anxious to confront the problem of poverty. The Irregulars are very poor indeed. The anarchist Kropotkin makes a brief appearance. Some of the music hall songs were chosen deliberately because they addressed the lives of the poor. The song that Daisy sings, “And her golden hair was hanging down her back” is I suppose rather explicit for a Primary 7 pupil – but education was my business. The centre of the play, as far as this theme is concerned, is the outburst of Homes against those who get rich by exploiting the poor. I had recently been studying Conrad’s “The Secret Agent” with a senior class.

Despite this deep theme the play is fun – even more so when you know some of the songs well enough to hum along with them, as I am sure you do. The plot worked out neatly, with an exciting climax and a little love story. It amused me to have some accurate history. The references to Briggs’ bowling feats are taken from Wisden. I also did my best to have the Holmes/Watson dialogues as authentic as I could make them, without parody. I strongly disapprove of "writing down" for children. You may or may not think I have succeeded.