Friday, July 06, 2012

Six of the Best 259

Ben Summerskill of Stonewall suffers from selective amnesia when it comes to equal marriage rights, as Stephen's Liberal Journal shows.

"The Liberal Democrats need a contest for President because the party urgently needs a debate about how to regain its identity in the eyes of the general public." Gareth Epps on the forthcoming internal party election.

Alan Geere Online finds a teacher undergoing a sex change receiving civilised treatment from local school, newspaper and community.

"On the subject of ballet children there is also a great deal of wasted sentiment. All sorts and descriptions of children are employed in theatres, from the respectable tradesman’s child to the coster’s child in Drury Lane; but the larger proportion are certainly of the very poorest class, and it must be remembered that these children would not be tucked up safely in their little beds, if they were not earning a few badly-wanted shillings; they would be running about he London streets." The Victorianist reprints a fascinating 1891 article on working children from the Strand Magazine.

The British Pathe Blog ponders the disappearance of the lost aviatrix Amerlia Earhart.

"Completed in 1908, the tramway was large enough to handle single height trams, but later demand for double-decker trams meant the tunnels had to be substantially altered in 1929. These works ripped out the tube tunnels at the northern end of the subway and replaced them with a continuation of the cut-n-cover concrete box. They also substantially altered the southern entrance by moving it to underneath the Waterloo Bridge instead of beside it, and deepened the cut/cover concrete box floor to cope with the taller trams.
The last trams in London ran in July 5th 1952 – so today is exactly 60 years since the Kingsway Subway tunnel closed to traffic." IanVisits ventures into London's abandoned Kingsway tram tunnels.

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