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

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577

From the National Museum of the US Navy, via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.

The Gift of Life by A. G. Gardiner

When columnist ‘Alpha of the Plough’ was asked to select his most memorable moment of the Great War, he told the story of HMS Formidable.

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578

© Dietmar Rabich, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0.

Measured Government by Napoleon Bonaparte

To Napoleon, the way that politicians in Paris had forced metric measurements on the public was a lesson in bad government.

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579

© lvm15, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.

A Match Made in Stockton by Clay Lane

The modern match is ignited by friction, a simple idea but one which had not occurred to anyone until 1826, when a Stockton pharmacist dropped a stick.

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580

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

Massacre at Amritsar by Winston Spencer Churchill

After one of the worst outrages in modern British history, Winston Churchill stood up in the House of Commons to label the Amritsar Massacre an act of terrorism.

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581

From the Auckland War Memorial Museum, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0.

My Heart’s Right There by A. G. Gardiner

The British Tommy’s fondness for ‘Tipperary’ exasperated some of his countrymen, but ‘Alpha of the Plough’ thought it showed proper English spirit.

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582

© Mark Kent, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.

To-Whit, Tu-Whoo! by A. G. Gardiner

The mournful owl in her Sussex garden so troubled A. G. Gardiner’s friend that she rarely visited her house in the country.

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Clay Lane The Copybook
About Clay Lane nicholas@claylane.uk

© Nicholas Armitage / Clay Lane, 2025

May 19 NS

May 6 OS

Blind Guide : William Wirt recalls an overpowering sermon from a blind man in a little wooden chapel.
It’s All in the Delivery : Aeschines paid tribute to the oratory of his greatest rival — whether he meant to or not.
The Road to Ruin : George Berkeley warned that industry, not financial speculation, was the guarantee of a nation’s wealth.
Signs of Command : Suggest publicly-displayed commands, and say how many of them are sentences.
My Native Notes : Scotsman James Boswell always spoke good English when in England, but he was careful to leave a little Scots in.
Hidden Message : Reveal the hidden message in a letter, and write a coded letter of your own.
The Great and the Good : Daniel Defoe wondered whether goodness was not preferable to greatness.
Statements, Questions and Commands : Choose a word from our list, and then use it in any one of the three basic types of sentence — if possible.
Sentegrams : These sentences, taken from English literature, have been jumbled up like an anagram; see if you can piece them back together.
Good Sense : Rewrite these sentences so that the word ‘unless’ is not used.
The Coronation of Anne Boleyn : The weight of the crown that Anne Boleyn wore proved too heavy to bear.
Abstract : Use these words in sentences as a Noun, Verb or Adjective.
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