Courage Posts

Happy Sunday! One of the joys of creating the Batting the Breeze podcast and Breezer newsletter is to uncover exceptional personal stories and histories.​This week, I found myself thumbing through motivational quotations and came across this: …

  Hello all -  Happy Sunday!   Eighty years ago on Thursday, 19 September 1944, was a day to remember for William of Orange. William of Orange the pigeon, that is. Let’s rewind a little first…I used to think that a p…

Hello all -  Happy Sunday!   Imagine you’re 12,000 miles from home. You have no communications, no backup. You’re on the high seas with no engine, just sailcloth and temperamental winds to drive you. Even your maps are va…

Hello all -  Happy Sunday!   A couple of weeks ago I mentioned my recent trip to London. I  walked the tourist route around Whitehall, Parliament Square and down to Buckingham Palace.  During that trip, I also popped into S…

Hello all -  Happy Sunday!   There’s little more exciting than uncovering the life of a true hero, and one that has remained seemingly unknown and uncelebrated - at least in my neck of the woods in the UK. I am sure down under …

Hello all Happy Sunday! A couple of weeks ago, many of us watched the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings, the beginning of the end of World War II in Europe. Today marks another anniversary of a slightly less solemn na…

Hello all - Happy Sunday!   This week marks a key historical memory of World War I, one in which I have a particular interest — the Scuttling of the German Fleet at Scapa Flow on June 21, 1919. My grandfather, Cecil Edward Bottle, …

Hello all -  Happy Sunday!   The obvious choice to contemplate this week was Queen Elizabeth II's coronation on this day, 2 June 1953. She was our longest reigning monarch (70 years and 214 days to be precise), even surpassing t…

Hello all -  Happy Sunday!   This week in the UK the sun came out, and, of course, we all had to rush out and enjoy it. I picked up my mother and we went into Christchurch for a coffee. We sat outside looking over the square and…

Hello all -  Happy Sunday!   ...and at last, our very first newsletter! Huge apologies to those of you who have been subscribed for a while - I hope it's worth the wait! ​Incredibly, the Batting the Breeze podcast has b…