The Copybook

Short passages for reading, drawn from history, legend, poetry and fiction.

1285

From Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.

The Obstinacy of Fowell Buxton Clay Lane

Fatherless teenage tearaway Fowell Buxton was not a promising boy, but the Gurney family changed all that.

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1286

From Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.

The Battle of Jutland Clay Lane

Preventing the German fleet from breaking out into the Atlantic in 1916 should have felt like victory, but it felt like defeat.

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1287

© Leandro Neumann Ciuffo, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC-BY-SA 2.0.

The Spy Clay Lane

In 1910, Constantine Zervakos, a young monk from the Greek island of Paros, found himself charged with espionage.

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1288

© Fanny Schertzer, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC-BY-SA 3.0.

Heathcoat’s Bobbinet Clay Lane

John Heathcoat’s lace-making machine created thousands of jobs, and gave ordinary people clothes they could never have dreamt of.

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1289

From Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.

The Boer Wars Clay Lane

South African settlers of Dutch descent could not escape the march of the British Empire.

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1290

From Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.

Our Lady’s Mantle Clay Lane

Shortly after Askold and Dir founded Kiev in 862, they launched a brazen but ill-fated assault on the capital of the Roman Empire.

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