iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Peter Doyle @profpeterdoyle.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

In praise of this book, given to me by my sister when I was quite young. Published in 1970 and written by the influential paleo anthropologist F. Clark Howell, it always fascinated me, and is a treasured book.

Cover of the Life Nature Library book, Early Man, given to me by my sister when I was a young boy.

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Peter Doyle @profpeterdoyle.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

Two days into my holiday in France, and I’ve already added a Tirailleur Sénégalais and a Chasseur à pied to the miniature army… On les Aura!

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Peter Doyle @profpeterdoyle.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

Early British ‘War Office Pattern’ steel helmet (known as a Brodie after its patentee), c.1916, with early liner and buckled chin strap. Introduction of this helmet reputedly increased the number of head wounds - as previously these casualties would be marked as killed, not wounded in action

War Office Pattern steel helmet, c1916, showing liner

War Office Pattern steel helmet, c1916, close up of chin strap

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Peter Doyle @profpeterdoyle.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

Machine (it, the computer): ‘Rewrite this paragraph with Copilot’ Human (me, the writer): ‘No [insert expletive]. By the way, it’s Co-pilot’

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Peter Doyle @profpeterdoyle.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

An old cart shed at the Thames Chase Forest Centre in Essex. Constructed from reclaimed beams, some 500 years old, this building stood through the Great War as its farm supplied food for the Home Front. In 1915, a year of military reverses, a worker daubed the fateful date on the timber. Why?

Ancient beams in an old cart house in Essex, at the Thames Chase Forest Centre. The date 1915 is prominently displayed

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Peter Doyle @profpeterdoyle.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

Thank you apple tree. Planted in the garden of a 1930s inter-war ‘housing boom’ house, you must have experienced war and peace, and gave sustenance to generations. Thank you for being there, and for shading me as I reflect on your life.

Looking up at the branches of my
Old apple tree

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Ivy @ivymrx.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

Unique freaks!

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Peter Doyle @profpeterdoyle.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

Honestly, has it really come to this?

Screenshot of BBC news item ‘Find out which university degrees could earn you more across your lifetime’

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Peter Doyle @profpeterdoyle.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

Having first seen DEVO decades ago, I saw them again, days ago. And what I’ve learned over this period is that their message is even more relevant today, as it was then.

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Peter Doyle @profpeterdoyle.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

Princess Mary’s Christmas gift for ‘Every Sailor Afloat, Every Soldier at the Front’ to a sailor of HMS Queen Mary, sunk with almost all hands at Jutland, 110 years ago. This frame could either be a poignant memory of a lost sailor, or survivor’s memory of his once proud vessel.

Princess Mary’s gift in a wooden frame, with the cap tally from a sailor of the Queen Mary, sunk at Jutland 1916

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Peter Doyle @profpeterdoyle.bsky.social · 11/05/2026

Interesting insights from David Olusoga at this evening’s lecture in London’s Cadogan Hall

Historian David Olusoga lecturing at Cadogan Hall

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RG Poulussen @rgpoulussen.bsky.social · 16/04/2026

#OTD in 1941, St George's Cathedral in Southwark was bombed. Father Dixon inspecting the damage. #WW2 #HISTORY

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Dr Adam Prime @primeadam.bsky.social · 21/03/2026

I am delighted to be speaking at The WFA Somme 110 Conference on 4 July at the Army & Navy Club! I'll be talking about the Indian cavalry alongside @profpeterdoyle.bsky.social Linda Parker, & Stephen Badsey. Plus our president Spencer Jones will be chairing a panel discussion. Booking is now open!

westernfrontassociation.com

President’s Conference: SOMME 110 | The Western Front Association

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Dr Dion Georgiou 🇨🇾❤️🇬🇾 @drdiongeorgiou.bsky.social · 14/03/2026

Re-upping this for the Saturday crowd: On how Michael Balcon articulated Ealing Studios’ institutional identity and commercial and creative decisionmaking in moral, progressive, and patriotic terms. All reposts (and subscriptions) much appreciated. x

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Peter Doyle @profpeterdoyle.bsky.social · 01/02/2026

Silk postcards are avidly collected, though examples like this one, faded and grubby, are likely to be overlooked. But there is something about its message, ‘a kiss from the trenches’, that draws the eye and sponsors reflection: a simple message of love from a frontline soldier of the Great War

Silk postcard with the flags of the Allies, a doing of mistletoe and the message ‘A kiss from the trenches’

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Peter Doyle @profpeterdoyle.bsky.social · 21/01/2026

Your Britain: Fight For it Now - 1943/2026. Abram Games’ hard-hitting poster depicted modern health care (Finsbury Health Centre, with want and degradation lurking in the rear; a future worth fighting for in 1943- and today

Abram Games’ poster, at the IWM (Art.IWM PST 2911) showing the health centre with a child with rickets behind: the centre, still thriving, is shown below, 2026

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Peter Doyle @profpeterdoyle.bsky.social · 21/01/2026

Reminders of the ‘first blitz’

Plaque recording a Zeppelin raid on Farringdon, 1915

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Peter Doyle @profpeterdoyle.bsky.social · 14/01/2026

The Salient. The physical remains of a war that still reminds us of how easy it is to slip into conflict, and how difficult it is to escape entrenched positions

Remains of FWW shells and other detritus at Hooge Chateau, part of the Ypres Salient

Remains of FWW barbed wire and other detritus at Hooge Chateau, part of the Ypres Salient

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Gallipoli Association @gallipoliassoc.bsky.social · 28/12/2025

@profpeterdoyle.bsky.social kindly spoke at our Annual Conference in 2024. You can catch up with it here....and all of our other conference talks and zoom lectures. youtu.be/gyJol5djRHA?...

youtu.be

Gallipoli 1915: the impact of terrain from ‘forcing the Dardanelles’ to ‘evacuating the beaches’

YouTube video by Gallipoli Association

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Peter Doyle @profpeterdoyle.bsky.social · 22/12/2025

It’s become a ‘thing’ for me to re-read this classic at this time of year…

Page from Bullets & Billets, showing soldiers inn1914 struggling in mud under a star shell

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Peter Doyle @profpeterdoyle.bsky.social · 22/12/2025

Festive frivolity (+ historical commentary)

A FWW Christmas Zeppelin; a Cold War Cosmonaut new years decoration, and Princess Mary’s gift box for the British sailors and soldiers of 1914

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Bill @bill1940.bsky.social · 11/12/2025

#HistBookChat trailer #2 for my book. Coming from @barnthorn.bsky.social in the New Year.

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Peter Doyle @profpeterdoyle.bsky.social · 10/12/2025

I was almost tempted… (as seen in Copenhagen this week)

Trailer in Copenhagen with the name Zeppelin … Hire

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Royal Historical Society @royalhistsoc.org · 14/11/2025

Now open: call for the Royal Historical Society's First Book and Early Career Article Prizes, 2026. Eligible titles, published in 2025, may be submitted by the author before the closing date of 15 December. Further details and how to apply: bit.ly/3KnR47v #Skystorians

bit.ly

Royal Historical Society Book and Article Prizes, 2026: submissions now invited - RHS

The Royal Historical Society invites applications for its First Book Prize, 2026 and Early Career Article Prize, 2026. The call for submissions opens on Monday 29 September 2025 and runs to Monday 15 ...

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Simon Jones @simonjones.bsky.social · 23/11/2025

Liverpool Cenotaph two weeks ago today.

Liverpool Cenotaph after Remembrance Day wreath laying, people looking at poppy wreaths.

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Peter Doyle @profpeterdoyle.bsky.social · 23/11/2025

Details of Tyson Smith’s bas relief panels from Liverpool Cenotaph. On one side the armed men from Liverpool in angular, tight ranks, stern faced; on the other the drawn faces and stooped figures of the families

‘Out of the north parts’, bronze ranks of marching soldiers in relief

A child lays a flower at a War Grave bearing the badge of the King’s Liverpool Regiment

An elderly father looks on, tired and drawn, his hands clasped together

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Simon Verdegem @simonverdegem.bsky.social · 11/11/2025

The Hill80 report was completed some time ago, but only now officially submitted — which means I can finally share it! It’s in Dutch, but I hope you’ll still enjoy the content. 🔗 Read it here: oar.onroerenderfgoed.be/publicaties/...

oar.onroerenderfgoed.be

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Peter Doyle @profpeterdoyle.bsky.social · 23/11/2025

Hoylake & West Kirby War Memorial with sculptures by Charles Sergeant Jagger, a frontline soldier wounded in action. The sculptures are dark, intense: a brooding soldier and a mourning figure with a crown of thorns. Away from the busy street, this monument, rich in detail, depicts a deep wound

The bronze brooding soldier, dressed for frontline service and holding his rifle in front of him, towers over a discarded picklehaube helmet

Bronze figure holding a crown of thorns and the broken chains of tyranny

Detail of the soldier’s water bottle, sculpted from experience of frontline use

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Peter Doyle @profpeterdoyle.bsky.social · 23/11/2025

Birkenhead War Memorial, and remembrance of my youth in my home town. At least three of the names commemorated here are from my family. The Westmorland stone bas relief figures were by Tyson Smith of Liverpool; he included a representation of the bronze memorial plaque designed by Carter Preston

Green Westmorland Slate figure of a robed woman holding a Memorial plaque designed by the sculptor’s brother in law

Detail of the memorial plaque designed by Edward Carter Preston, also of Liverpool. Carter Preston was the brother in law of Tyson Smith. This is the only known representation of the plaque on a war memorial.

Panel of Birkenhead War Memorial, including the name of my Great Uncle, Pte T.H. Roberts, killed at Passchendaele and buried at Tyne Cot

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Peter Doyle @profpeterdoyle.bsky.social · 23/11/2025

Port Sunlight War Memorial. Commissioned from sculptor Goscombe John by Lord Lever while the Great War was in progress. It commemorates the employees of Lever Brothers killed in the war; its bronze statues are amongst the most dynamic and detailed to be seen anywhere. Its detail is breathtaking

Bronze statue of kneeling ww1 soldier in cap, with rifle and fixed bayonet

Steel helmeted bronze statues of two WW1 soldiers, one of whom is an officer with field glasses

Bronze figures of Lewis gunners firing skywards

Bronze sailors, with a pointing officer and matelot shielding his eyes with his hand

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Tom Isitt @tomisitt.bsky.social · 10/11/2025

The Castello, an Italian WW1 machine gun position on Costabella Ridge in the Dolomites.

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Tom Isitt @tomisitt.bsky.social · 11/11/2025

The best view in WW1? An Austrian machine gun position on Lagazuoi Piccolo in the Dolomites.

Rock-cut cave with a view of snow covered mountains

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Tim Godden @tjgodden.bsky.social · 30/10/2025

A trip to the Post Office, a chance reading of a sentence in Arthur Mee’s volume on Devon sat in the car park, and a returned cross I had no idea existed discovered. #ww1 #memory

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Peter Doyle @profpeterdoyle.bsky.social · 26/10/2025

Incredible to see this maquette of Gilbert’s design for Troon War Memorial at Hartlebury Castle yesterday. It’s an unusual design, a product of the Bromsgrove Design Guild, who produced both the Liver Birds and the gates to Buckingham Palace

Maquette in plaster of a classical figure of Britannia, by W. Gilbert of the Bromsgrove Design Guild

The maquette compared with the bronze figure at Troon, the latter picture taken by Paul Goodwin

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Paul Reed @sommecourt.bsky.social · 24/09/2025

Thanks to all who joined us for a @oldfrontline.bsky.social Podcast Supporters evening where @profpeterdoyle.bsky.social joined us for an excellent talk about the Battle of Loos in 1915 - with the 110th Anniversary tomorrow, very apt!

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Peter Doyle @profpeterdoyle.bsky.social · 02/09/2025

Trying to work out what is going on in the world can be a challenge

Mannequin of Worcester soldier in Gallipoli, 1915, peering through a trench periscope. On display until recently at the Soldiers of Worcester exhibition - now closed.

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Peter Doyle @profpeterdoyle.bsky.social · 02/09/2025

Technology is often a mystery. So it is, so it has always been

Mannequin of a mounted First World War Worcester Yeoman looking at his compass for inspiration, on display in the Soldiers of Worcester exhibition until its recent closure

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Peter Doyle @profpeterdoyle.bsky.social · 26/08/2025

Cast-iron Ypres. This incredible dish, no doubt made for the inter-war tourist market, is a cut-above the norm. Made of cast-iron, it has a dark presence that mirrors the destruction of the city, prior to its rebirth.

Cast iron dish depicting the ruined city of Ypres - specifically the remains of the Cloth Hall

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Peter Doyle @profpeterdoyle.bsky.social · 22/08/2025

I’ll never forget my first trip to this incredible place of legend

Colditz castle at night, taken on my very first digital camera, a Kodak easyshare in the early 2000s. I’ll never forget that trip

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Peter Doyle @profpeterdoyle.bsky.social · 20/08/2025

Great to see my 2012 book reissued in paperback - as with all the books in this series, it’s an introductory guide. Pleased that readers found it of value

Cover of my book on Loos, showing a soldier in a PH helmet

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RG Poulussen @rgpoulussen.bsky.social · 05/06/2025

German #WW1 Fokker D.VII fighter planes from Royal Prussian Jagdstaffel 73. #HISTORY

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