Penny Mackinder

Lawyer (retired solicitor), occasional Journalist, Stitcher, Walker. Politics, Legal Aid politics, climate politics courtesy of @EmmaGatten. Odd bits.

[Pete Savin @pete_savin]

Walking off site at @VindolandaTrust tonight after a day of rain showers, the weather has left the best till last today #archaeology

[Grenfell United @GrenfellUnited]

We remember our loved ones today and every day. Next month is the last anniversary with any part of Grenfell Tower remaining. Join us in solidarity to remember those we lost, and demand Justice for the 72 💚

[North Ages @NorthAges]

Edward ‘the Confessor’ was crowned King of the English by Archbishops Ælfric Puttoc of York and Eadsige of Canterbury at the Old Minster, Winchester, #OTD in 1043.

[Wallingford Town Council @Wallingfordtc]

Be part of history. Help recreate the missing final panel of the Bayeux Tapestry, telling Wallingford’s role in 1066. We’re looking for around 10 volunteers. No experience needed, just interest and commitment. Contact us to get involved and leave your mark.

[George Osborne @George_Osborne]

The Bayeux Tapestry is coming to town! Tickets on sale 1st July ⁦⁦@britishmuseum⁩

[North Ages @NorthAges]

Feb 11: Feast of Cædmon (†680), monk of Streanæshalch (Whitby). Cowherd who, in his advanced years, was divinely endowed with a gift for poetry and song. Bede says the scriptures were interpreted for him and he would create religious compositions beyond compare.

[Penny Mackinder @PNickinder]

@LissaKEvans Agree. I was frequently moved to tears

[North Ages @NorthAges]

Haraldr (III) Sigurðsson, king of Norway, and Tostig Godwineson, former ealdorman in Northumbria, sailed up the River Ouse with a fleet of 300 ships #OTD in 1066. Before entering the Humber they had harried the Northumbrian coast, setting Scarborough ablaze.

[Naomi Daw @Naomi_Daw]

The British Museum is calling for partners to join a Bayeux Tapestry National Programme that will complement its “once-in-a-generation” exhibition of the 11th-century tapestry. https://t.co/oMLGUbANYW

[Penny Mackinder @PNickinder]

Thank you @HelenhCarr

[Engelsberg Ideas @EngelsbergIdeas]

The epic drama of the Norman Conquest has been adapted into a half-baked tale, light on history and heavy on tropes.

1066 and all the clichés | @HelenhCarr

https://t.co/SUXyJ4XP4I

[Penny Mackinder @PNickinder]

@DJMusgrove @DrJaninaRamirez @peterfrankopan Really enjoyed your session, recorded & on line. I don't think I shouted at the screen at all. (Except, do you really not know who Nikolai Coster-Waldau is ?)

[Penny Mackinder @PNickinder]

@TessWhite4NE @DalgetySusan I made sure I bought my copy from the Edinburgh Book Festival book tent. Props to them for stocking it I suppose

[Eleanor Parker @ClerkofOxford]

Today is Lammas, an Anglo-Saxon harvest festival celebrated on 1 August. The name comes from the Old English word 'hlafmæsse', 'loaf-mass', so it's a festival of bread - perhaps a day for blessing loaves of bread made from the first wheat of the harvest.

https://t.co/i9aKfkfdWk

[Lily Craven @TheAttagirls]

Doreen Ashburnham-Ruffner born OTD in 1905 in Rye, Sussex, ferried military aircraft across the Atlantic from the USA to Europe during WW2 but that’s not why she is the Woman of the Day. It’s because she was awarded the George Cross for something she did as a child.

She saved her cousin’s life by fighting off a mountain lion.

Doreen’s family relocated to Canada, when she was very young, reasoning that the climate of Vancouver Island would be better for her delicate health than Sussex.

On 23 September 1916, 11 year old Doreen and her eight year old cousin Tony left their homes at Cowichan Lake to walk along a woodland trail and were attacked by a ravenous, 8ft long, 180 lb cougar.

“The cougar sprang from about 35ft and landed on my back, throwing me forward on to my face. He chewed on my shoulder and bit chunks off my butt.”

“Tony attacked him with a bridle that he was carrying. They fought for 200 yards down the trail. The cougar scratched the skin off Tony's back and ripped the flesh off his scalp. His scalp was hanging off the back of his head by six hairs.”

Doreen repeatedly punched the cougar’s head with all of the strength an 11 year old girl could muster and kept jabbing it in the eyes, but when that didn’t work, she stuck her right arm in its mouth to stop it from killing Tony.

Her right bicep was bitten right through and the cougar reared up, towering over her. She must have thought her days were numbered too but “it was disturbed by some sound, for presently it slunk away and ran under a log, where it was afterwards killed.”

The badly-injured Doreen and Tony somehow managed to stagger home. Her mother rowed across the lake during a storm to get help from a neighbour who was a former British Army doctor. Doreen suffered sepsis as well as her injuries but recovered. Tony had 175 stitches in his head and was in hospital for a long time but he recovered.

In 1925, she moved to California and joined the first US women’s polo team before qualifying as a pilot in 1935.

Doreen was awarded the Albert Medal when she was just twelve but it was later converted to the George Cross and Queen Elizabeth II personally conferred it upon her in 1974. She died in 1991 aged 86.

[Penny Mackinder @PNickinder]

@DJMusgrove And there was me thinking that you and @Tostig1066 would be the ones with the inside track !

[Penny Mackinder @PNickinder]

I have stitches in this !

[Dr Elizabeth Norton @ENortonHistory]

The Battle Tapestry, on display in Battle’s parish church (the site of the Battle of Hastings). It’s a continuation of the Bayeux Tapestry, starting with the search for King Harold’s body by his mother & former wife, then the foundation of Battle Abbey, and ending with the foundation of Battle’s church in 1115 #battle #bayeuxtapestey #battleofhastings

[Dr Kate Strasdin @kateStrasdin]

I have been thinking today, as I complete my book on makers to the royal wardrobe, of those in the needle trades whose names we do not know but whose work remains as their legacy. A riot of colour in remembrance of them, a 1950s Hartnell gown, stitched by many hands @V_and_A

[North Ages @NorthAges]

'A sign such as men never saw before was seen in the heavens’ #OTD in 1066, and remained for at least seven nights. It was Halley’s Comet on one of its periodic visitations. Chronicler William of Jumièges wrote, ‘Many people said it portended a change in some kingdom.’

[Audrey Ludwig MBE @AudreySuffolk]

I’ve written a warning on bad faith equality law advice post Supreme Court Court case in For Women Scotland; and how to spot it https://t.co/mabEagpbag

[Penny Mackinder @PNickinder]

Probably by women.

[#WOMENSART @womensart1]

The Bayeux Tapestry, a 70 metres long Eurppean medieval masterpiece depicting the events leading to the Norman Conquest of England, created by women artisan embroiderers in the 11th century #WomensArt