iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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

Finally I was able to visit the (reconstructed) cave of Lascaux with its incredible art, left by the Cro-Magnons, and wondered over today. Closed to the public due to damage in 1963, Howell’s book whetted my appetite to see them. It was moving to finally do so.

Page from Early Man depicting the black horse of Lascaux

The incredible roof of Lascaux cave in 1963; as depicted in ‘Early Man’

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

I was always fascinated by this image from ‘Early Man’ of the Cro-Magnon Abris, at Laugerie Basse in southern France. I visited yesterday. What an incredible and evocative place.

Photograph of houses beneath towering limestone cliffs at Laugerie Basse, from ‘Early Man’ (1970)

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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

British ‘Helmet, Steel, Mark 1’ from 1917 with later liner, rough sand finish to cut down on reflection and brazed-on Machine Gun Corps cap badge

British ‘Helmet, Steel, Mark 1’ with sand finish and attached Machine Gun corps badge

British ‘Helmet, Steel, Mark 1’ with liner and chin strap

Makers mark to Hadfield Steel of Sheffield

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

British ‘Helmet, Steel, Mark 1’ which replaced the ‘War Office Pattern’ helmet later in 1916. This with its original liner designed to provide sufficient gap between the head and the crown of the helmet. This one has insignia of the 14th Sherwood Foresters.

Mark 1 infantry helmet with original painted Sherwood Foresters badge

Detail of painted insignia to the 14th Sherwood foresters on the helmet

Interior of the helmet with second pattern liner and leather chin strap

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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 replacement liner and chin strap. These helmets had a raw edge to the helmet rim. This one has a remnant of the original bright green paint.

Early British War Office Pattern helmet with remains of original paint

Early British War Office Pattern helmet with replacement liner

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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 · 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

Interesting take. How about ‘Gallipoli chic’?

Four New Zealand Army Officers, Gallipoli, Turkey. Powles family papers. Ref: PA1-o-811-20-2. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand.

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

I see you were there too. It was an incredible evening.

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

Regimental badges on silks are sought after, as they are decorative and interesting, connecting the sender with their unit, instilling pride. This one is all the more interesting through its connection to the Royal Naval Division (RND) - sailors in khaki who served in the trenches

RND anchor silk postcard with the words ‘Souvenir from France’

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

A silk postcard sent home by a soldier from the Great War, but perhaps with a difference. Its central maple leaf and crown motif indicative of the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF), its French script suggesting it was aimed at French Canadians

Silk postcard with the flags of the Allies, and a central Maple leaf and crown motif of the CEF. It’s message- Souvenir de la Grande Guerre - suggests it was aimed at French Canadians

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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

Here’s Rifleman Strudwick’s grave in 1985, and the adjacent Essex Farm dressing station from the same period

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

Erm…. ‘Stop scrolling and post two characters who bring you happiness’ - these guys, naturally

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

It was a few years ago, but we had an incredible exhibition last year at @greatwarhuts.bsky.social the catalogue can be accessed through my website. My book in Queen Victoria’s tin is in progress…

Exhibition catalogue from the Great War Huts exhibition in Princess Mary’s Christmas Gift 1914

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

I try and visit every time I’m ’back home’, but I had another target this time - a little older

Me pointing at a flamboyant crowned Liverpool Special postbox at the Albert Dock. It’s a bonkers, uniquely Liverpool creation from the 1860s

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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

Here’s an example of the Great War bronze memorial plaque, each one specially cast (not engraved) for the man or woman it commemorates. A huge undertaking to mark a nation’s loss

Memorial plaque depicting Britannia and a lion trampling a Prussian eagle. Each one was specially cast

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

Check this one out: maquette of a grieving figure by Gilbert and its bronze full-size version on the Towneley Park War Memorial, Burnley

Maquette of grieving figure by W. Gilbert of the Bromsgrove Design Guild

W. Gilbert’s grieving figure in bronze on the Towneley Park War Memorial, Burnley

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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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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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Peter Doyle @profpeterdoyle.bsky.social · 04/06/2025

Snake stone. How wonderful is this? Nature, eh

Ammonite, Dactylioceras tenuicostatum from Whitby. Collected by me as a young teenager

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Peter Doyle @profpeterdoyle.bsky.social · 15/05/2025

At the Menin Gate. The desire to connect with those lost a century plus ago is strong, the gate such a focal point. And rightly so.

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Peter Doyle @profpeterdoyle.bsky.social · 15/05/2025

The Menin Gate, just last week. Now divested of its shrouds, once again the Gate becomes a focal point for the curious, or for those seeking names or leaving remembrances. All this while pedestrians move through its arches, just as soldiers once passed though its rubble, to the sound of the guns

Crosses of remembrance laid at the Menin Gate

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Peter Doyle @profpeterdoyle.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

This is my favourite FWW forester image

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