Michael Ryle and the development of the House of Commons select committee system
Forty years ago today the House of Commons debated proposals to restructure its select committee system. See this blog by Emmeline Ledgerwood to find out more.
Recording of the week: Frank Land OBE – from Nazi Germany to the tea shop electronic brain
This week’s selection comes from Dr Tom Lean, Project Interviewer for An Oral History of British Science. Amongst the awards in this month’s Queen’s Birthday Honours list was a much deserved OBE for An Oral History of British Science interviewee Frank Land, Britain’s first professor of information systems and a…
Recording of the week: Leonardo da Vinci’s watery obsession
This week’s selection comes from Cheryl Tipp, Curator of Wildlife & Environmental Sounds. One of the major themes of the library’s current exhibition Leonardo da Vinci: A Mind in Motion is water. From the workings of underwater breathing apparatus to the formation of waves, Leonardo had a lifelong fascination with…
Recording of the week: Loss of a world and a need to capture it
This week’s selection comes from Charlie Morgan, Oral History Archivist. Someone asked Goha what was his favourite music and he replied, ‘The clanging of pots and pans and the tinkling of glasses’ (Middle Eastern Food, p.520) In 2018 Gaby’s Deli closed after 50 years on Charing Cross Road. A popular…
D-Day has come
U.S. Soldiers disembark a landing craft at Normandy, France, June 6, 1944 By Jonathan Summers, Curator of Classical Music For those people in occupied countries, this was life changing news. Seventy five years ago today, as the allied forces landed on the Normandy beaches to liberate France and countries beyond…