Blog | Lucienne Boyce

Silver Sound 24 February 2017: Dyslexia-Friendly Books

Today’s guests were Bristol crime thriller writer Helen Abbott (who writes as A A Abbott) and Alistair Sims, owner of the independent book shop, Books on the Hill in Clevedon, …

Silver Sound 27 January 2017: Where’s My Money?

Today’s guest was Bristol writer Mike Manson. Mike has written a number of non-fiction books about Bristol, including Riot! The Bristol Bridge Massacre of 1793; Bristol Beyond the Bridge: The …

Rebellion Against Tyrants: Suffragette Graffiti in Holloway Prison

The closure of Holloway Prison in July 2016 prompted many people to remember some of the women imprisoned there since it opened in 1852, amongst them militant suffragettes. Some of …

Silver Sound 6 January 2017: Bristol, Balloons and Shaun the Sheep!

Today’s guest was Bristol artist Jenny Urquhart. Jenny creates contemporary, vibrant paintings of her favourite places, working with acrylic, ink, collage, computer-based graphics, and photography. She is best known for …

Obiter Dicta and Other Pronouncements: Augustine Birrell and the Suffragettes

I recently came into possession of a literary curiosity, a copy of the first volume of The Collected Essays and Addresses of the Rt Hon Augustine Birrell, 1880-1920 published by …

Spotlight On…Cicely Hamilton

I’m so excited about my latest book purchase I just have to share it! I’ve just acquired a copy of Cicely Hamilton’s autobiography, Life Errant (London: J M Dent and …

Quakers and Suffragettes

I’ve always been interested in the way history reflects the age in which it is written. I recently came across a striking example of this in M R Brailsford’s book …

Making Money From the Suffragettes

The suffragette campaign spearheaded by Mrs Pankhurst’s Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) was a time of heady excitement, courage, endurance and persistence. Women marched under banners with stirring slogans …

Spotlight on Reginald McKenna (1863-1943): The Man who Introduced the Cat and Mouse Act

Reginald McKenna, the man who introduced the infamous “Cat and Mouse Act”, was Home Secretary from 1911 to 1915. Born into a Catholic family in London, he later converted to …

The Bristol Boys: The Bare Knuckle Champions and The Hatchet Inn

The Hatchet Inn on Frogmore Street in Bristol is all that remains of a row of seventeenth-century timbered houses dating back to 1606 – making it one of the city’s …

The Suffragettes could not be pacifists at any price

In 1913, and again in 1914, a bomb was found at the Bank of England in London. Other incendiary devices discovered in the capital included one with “Votes for Women” …

Dickens and Chickens

On 17 April 1860, in fields near Farnborough, Charles Dickens joined an audience amongst whom were the Prince of Wales and the Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston, as well as a …