by David West | Aug 8, 2026 | News
On the 8th of August, 1963, £2.61 million was stolen from a Royal Mail train on the West Coast Main Line. I spent around a third of my career working on railway projects and have written about railway events. Sadly there have been a few railway accidents as well as...
by David West | Aug 8, 2026 | News
I have posted about my career as a civil engineer. Thomas Telford was the first president of the Institution of Civil Engineers and he was born on the 8th of August 1757. He was one of the greatest civil engineers of the Industrial Revolution, a man whose roads,...
by David West | Aug 7, 2026 | News
On the 7th of August, 1819, Simon Bolívar triumphed over Spanish forces in the Battle of Boyacá. Simón Bolívar is one of the towering figures of Latin American history, remembered as “El Libertador” — the Liberator — for his leading role in freeing much of northern...
by David West | Aug 6, 2026 | News
I recently attended a lecture, via zoom, about the Anthropocene. That comes from the Greek, anthropo meaning human, and cene meaning new. It is used to describe the geological age which has been impacted fundamentally by human activity. The reason I’m prompted to...
by David West | Aug 5, 2026 | News
The Gowrie Conspiracy of the 5th of August, 1600, remains one of the most mysterious and disputed episodes in Scottish history. It centres on an alleged attempt to kidnap—or possibly assassinate—King James VI and I by members of the powerful Ruthven family, chiefly...
