Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

The Past and other Places

@pastandotherplaces.bsky.social

1.4K followers 780 following 1.8K posts

Kay W. Researching in retirement. Occasional blogger at The Past and other Places. Original discipline historical geography. Takes too many photos (kaysgeog on Flickr). Pedestrian non-driver. Edinburgh 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 https://thepastandotherplaces.wordpress.com/

thepastandotherplaces.wordpress.com

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

The Past and other Places @pastandotherplaces.bsky.social · May 23

Resources for anyone interested in mining communities in Scotland in the nineteenth century and early-twentieth century. Includes museums to visit. Recently edited. Suggestions welcome. #genealogy #FamilyHistory #skystorians #mining 📚🗃️
thepastandotherplaces.wordpress.com/housing-the-...

The Miners

A selective list of resources relating to housing in Scottish mining communities 1880-1930.

thepastandotherplaces.wordpress.com

4 15 29

Reposted by The Past and other Places

Angela Dunning @angeladunning.bsky.social · 2h

OMG Riot Women on #bbciplayer by genius Sally Wainwright, I think I now know what to do with all my rage. And I've always wanted to be in a band too. 😍🎤🎸🎹

"And you thought The Clash were angry".

Hold my mic.

Brilliant.

a woman is playing drums on a stage in front of a group of people .

ALT: a woman is playing drums on a stage in front of a group of people .

media.tenor.com

1 2

Reposted by The Past and other Places

Brian McRoberts @brimcrob.bsky.social · 4h

Well Phew. That was a very average Scotland performance. Three points though is all that matters.

Scotland 2 | 1 Belarus

#WorldCupQualifiers

2 1 13

Reposted by The Past and other Places

Tom Duffin Photographer @tomduffinphotos.bsky.social · 1d

This Autumn might be the best one I've seen in Edinburgh if the fine weather keeps up

#Autumn #Fall #Edinburgh

4 25 140

Reposted by The Past and other Places

Nina Baker @ninabake2.bsky.social · 5h

Most amazing to me, it mentioned an RAE woman of whom I had previously been unaware - Gwendoline Marjorie Roper. The dates when she would have been at the RAE were 1941-61, so I suppose it is too much to hope that anyone who is still alive and worked there recalls her name? 2/3

Paragraph that mentions her work at RAE Farnborough

1 1 9

Reposted by The Past and other Places

Prem Sikka @premnsikka.bsky.social · 7h

Former Tory Minister Michael Gove says the post-Brexit Tory trade deals with Australia and New Zealand were bad for UK farmers.

Why did he/Tories Tories sign them?

Brexit hasn't yielded any economic benefits. UK gave up the best trade deals and now scavenges for whatever it can get.

Michael Gove admits that post-Brexit trade deals were bad for farmers

Michael Gove has admitted for the first time that the Australia and New Zealand trade deals negotiated by the former Tory government did not protect Britain’s farmers.

www.yorkshirepost.co.uk

14 87 220

Reposted by The Past and other Places

Women's History Scotland @womenshistscot.bsky.social · 8h

📣 NOW ACCEPTING ESSAYS! The Leah Leneman Prize for research on women’s or gender history is open to students & independent scholars. Submit your 8-10k word essay by 22 Dec 2025 📅

Full details: womenshistoryscotland.org/projects-and...

Front cover of Leah Leneman's 'The Scottish Suffragettes' featuring an image of an Ewardian woman in front of a 'Womens Freedom League' banner, and a second image of a busy suffrage march with banners that read 'Votes for Women'.

15 15

Reposted by The Past and other Places

North East Heritage Library @neheritagelib.bsky.social · 7h

Heddon on the Wall is the home to this beautiful Anglo Saxon church, which still retains some of its earliest elements some 1500 years later.

This is St Andrew, first consecrated between the 630s - 680s.

1 1 10

Reposted by The Past and other Places

lynncorrigan.bsky.social @lynncorrigan.bsky.social · 6h

Fantastic open day at Polmadie depot for #Polmadie150, part of #Railway200. Lots of memories also from when my train driver dad was based there.

Newly named locomotive train Polmadie 150 in blue Caledonian Sleeper branding

1 3

The Past and other Places @pastandotherplaces.bsky.social · 6h

"The old chairs were excellent for people with mobility issues or back pain because they had both arm and back rests, but the new ones are unusable. This is hostile furniture, it is designed to make you move on." #accessibility #galleries
www.wallpaper.com/design-inter...

How the sale of National Gallery benches sparked a conversation on museum accessibility

The National Gallery’s red leather seating is to be auctioned, 13-14 October. But its minimal replacement is getting some flack

www.wallpaper.com

The Past and other Places @pastandotherplaces.bsky.social · 8h

Anyone fancy sinking in to an ex @nationalgalleryuk.bsky.social sofa when they get home? A selection of recently removed bespoke gallery furniture up for auction.
app.bellmans.co.uk/en/auction/o...

Auctions, Valuations and Sales

app.bellmans.co.uk

1 2 3

Reposted by The Past and other Places

Scotland's Churches Trust @scotchurchestrust.bsky.social · 8h

Day 12 of #31DaysOfGraves - Notable Woman

An unassuming slab of stone off the Fife coast at Torryburn covers the mortal remains of Lilias Adie, the only known grave of an accused witch in Scotland

Buried beneath the tidal line by superstitious villagers in 1704, her grave was rediscovered in 2014

2 36 100

Reposted by The Past and other Places

lawrence jones @lawrentian.bsky.social · 4d

Just been made aware that the new documentary The Librarians is available for free on BBC iPlayer for the next 12 mths. It investigates what librarians in the US are going through right now as they unite to combat book banning & defend free speech. www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/epis...

Storyville - The Librarians

A Storyville documentary that explores how librarians across the US are risking their safety to defend free speech as book bans and censorship threaten democracy from within.

www.bbc.co.uk

1 8 19

The Past and other Places @pastandotherplaces.bsky.social · 10h

That would be excellent!

Reposted by The Past and other Places

Adam Chapman @adamchapman.bsky.social · 14h

A nice observational piece, showing what I learn is a ‘Ferguson Potato Spinner’ in action. Part of a suite of potato machines (mum took turns on this sort of work in the ‘60s - generally women’s labour then), i guess this shows how partial mechanisation was. #Skystorians #TractorCommentary

Advertising panel for Ferguson tractors potato attachments for their machines. The potato spinner is the bottom one and has a spinning blade with what looks like a tea tray on an arm.

The advert has a large body of text on the right on a white panel backed with yellow with black and white illustrations of cables tractors and machines on the left.

4 7 34

Reposted by The Past and other Places

The Past and other Places @pastandotherplaces.bsky.social · 14h

The tattie holidays are about to start in Scotland. Remember picking half a bit as a child. Put me off for life. This is a great read on the subject. #LocalHistory #farming
www.abebooks.co.uk/978186232061...

Front cover of a book by Heather Holmes on the history of potato picking in the Lothians. Black and white photo of c.1970s potato harvesters with baskets of potatoes to empty.

3 3 9

The Past and other Places @pastandotherplaces.bsky.social · 14h

3 3 9

The Past and other Places @pastandotherplaces.bsky.social · 14h

Heather Holmes is an historian of agricultural implements and tattie howking. #agriculture #machinery #history
blog.scottishagriculturalimplementmakers.co.uk/hansons-pota...

Hanson’s potato digger of the mid 1850s: an important forerunner of the spinner digger – Scottish agricultural implement makers

blog.scottishagriculturalimplementmakers.co.uk

1 1

Reposted by The Past and other Places

The Man in Seat 61 @seatsixtyone.bsky.social · 14h

And at Glasgow Central just now, 92 023 is named:

2 4 76

Reposted by The Past and other Places

Carve Her Name @carvehername.bsky.social · 14h

#OnThisDay, 12 Oct 1956, Marga Klompé is appointed Minister of Social Work. She is the first woman to be a cabinet Minister in the Netherlands government

#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #NLHistory 🗃️
1/2

Marga Klompé sitting with the rest of the Dutch cabinet - all white and male - as they pose for photos.

1 7 38

The Past and other Places @pastandotherplaces.bsky.social · 14h

Jean Payton Reid, architect and town planner (1917-97). Liberton Kirkyard, Edinburgh. Thought to have been Scotland's first female town planner. Family monument - pink granite obelisk.
#31DaysOfGraves day 12 notable women. #herstory
thepastandotherplaces.wordpress.com/2023/01/14/a...

Greek-style tall pointed obelisk in polished pink granite standing in a kirkyard. Most of the other gravestones are smaller and grey. The tower of the Kirk is prominent in the background. There are green shrubs and several bare-branched trees in the background.

11 33

Reposted by The Past and other Places

Jeannine Baker @nenieb.bsky.social · 18h

Fantastic piece by Kate Murphy responding to the devastating change of policy at the @BBC Written Archives Centre, which will make it impossible to undertake new independent research using the collection. cstonline.net/defending-th... #mediahistory

DEFENDING THE WAC: RECOVERING THE INVISIBLE WOMEN OF THE BBC by Kate Murphy

My first visit to the BBC’s Written Archives Centre was in 2002. I was working as a producer on Woman’s Hourand had applied for a three-month attachment to what was then the Diversity Centre…

cstonline.net

24 25

Reposted by The Past and other Places

This Is My Glasgow @thisismyglasgow.bsky.social · 16h

Late Victorian City Improvement Trust tenement on the corner between Trongate and Saltmarket in central Glasgow. Built by A.B. MacDonald in the 1890s, it may have originally been designed by John Carrick in 1877.

#glasgow #architecture #tenement #glasgowcross #architecturephotography

1 1 35

Reposted by The Past and other Places

Steve Chambers @planningtransport.co.uk · 16h

People following legal migration routes now fearing deportation.

Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan @london.gov.uk · 16h

I’m concerned about the changes to the Skilled Worker visa route and the impact it may have on Londoners working for Transport for London, our other public services and beyond.

Sir Sadiq Khan calls for pause on new immigration rules

The mayor of London said the changes had

www.bbc.co.uk

2 6 25

Reposted by The Past and other Places

Nancy Johnston @jeelyeater1.bsky.social · 16h

#31DaysOfGraves Day 12: Notable woman.Dr Elsie Inglis. Dean Cemetery, Edinburgh.

4 10 46

Reposted by The Past and other Places

Municipal Dreams @municipaldreams.bsky.social · 17h

Dutch domestic

View from window of canal, housing and church

1 1 15