Tag archives for themself - Page 8
L/Cpl William Kemp – Killed in Action
Lance Corporal William Kemp of the 2nd Scottish Rifles was killed in action one hundred years ago. I grew up seeing his name on the local war memorial, as did my father who was also named William Kemp. My dad was keen on family history, he could tell me all the living relatives and knew their exact relationship to us. He believed that all the Kemps in the Old Kilpatrick are were interrelated. So I've always seen L/Cpl William Kemp as part of my family, even though I cannot directly connect him from further research. William was almost certainly a regular soldier before WW1, either that or a recalled reservist. The Scottish Rifles were a regular battalion and started the war in Malta. However they were recalled and sent to France arriving in November 1914. William's Medal Index Card shows that he…
Six Steps to Blog Posts People Read
One of my oldest friends asked me for some advice on writing a blog and attracting a following. He asked me because I've been blogging for decades and have written hundreds of posts, the most popular of which get thousands of hits. It made me think, here's how I think you should write a blog that people will want to read. NB lots of people bang on about SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) but if you write good content in a readable way then it ought to hit the search engines fine. Well written and thought provoking content presented well will beat keyword stuffing any day of the week. 1. Pick a subject and be insightful By this I mean write about something you really know and care about. A topic you think about and can make insightful or thought provoking commentary…
New Books of 2015 pt.1
In keeping with my resolution to read more paper books (and the self-imposed target of at least twenty or five more than I've acquired) I thought I would record the new books I've acquired this year. I intend to read all of these during 2015. The first batch are technically 2014 acquisitions, mostly Christmas presents, but I'm counting them in my 2015 total. Here they are: That makes seven books so far, and you should expect to read reviews of them all on the blog later in the year. Given my post last year about how readers choose books I thought I would also record why I chose each of these books. Working up from the bottom here are the reasons I wanted each of these books. The fantastically funny Dragons at Crumbling Castle by Terry Pratchett. This was on my wish list…
Top Ten Posts of 2014
I've been looking through the stats, and ignoring the home page, and the separate parts of a linked series of posts, these are the top ten posts of 2014 (not all of which are from 2014). I've also adjusted the order to allow for when in the year the post was published, but these are all originally in the top 12 posts). Some stats During 2014 I have written 112 posts. 241 posts (out of the 334 posts plus four pages available) have received at least one hit over the course of the year. The top ten (list below) account for over half of all traffic across the blog. There's a small gap in the stats too, I got hacked in late November and lost a couple of days worth of stats, I rolled back to a previous version and…
Remembrance Challenge
We took our cubs to the local war memorial in the Church near the Scout Hall as part of our own remembrance challenge. Before we went the cubs each made a wreath of poppies and wrote a message on it. Each boy did his own personal wreath. We then walked to the Church where we spoke about why we remember, and how different things were in 1914. South Merstham wasn't as big then as it is now, the new houses were mostly built in the 1950s. In the 1911 census there were around 600 men in the locality. About 150 of whom signed up in August 1914. (I'm guessing some would be unfit, others in jobs that couldn't just go off to war and some others not that keen). @N04/15767315095/ Remembrance Challenge The remembrance challenge was to find out as much as…