iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Robert Culshaw @robertculshaw.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

Keeping over a hundred DPhils in order during Saturday morning's graduation ceremony (feat. the 'Stick of Encouragement') @ox.ac.uk @bodleian.ox.ac.uk @burgonsociety.bsky.social.

Doctors of Philosophy being led into the Sheldonian Theatre by the Bedel during a graduation ceremony.
I'm wearing a bowler hat and shirt sleeves, riding the nerves and reassuring that all I expect is 'walk and bow'.

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Robert Culshaw @robertculshaw.bsky.social · 07/12/2025

I got tiny Christmas decorations so these guys could look festive. Yeah, fine thanks.

Windy Miller and PC McGarry (#452) stand beside a small Christmas tree, McGarry holds a small festive wreath.

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Robert Culshaw @robertculshaw.bsky.social · 27/11/2025

I've the pleasure of some newly qualified Staff Nurses at the moment and, surprisingly, I like to provide historical context to ICU nursing. Enter this fabulous poster kept in the national archives: a scene I recreate daily with equally supportive looks of awe (but with a moustache). #HistNursing

National Archives 1963 INF 13/117, catalogue entry:
'Contrasting with the more stylised depictions of nurses in earlier NHS recruitment posters, this poster used in the 1960s and 1970s shows nurses in the thick of it, providing treatment to an intubated man. Nursing is described as a ‘professional career’ but the tagline says that ‘people remember nurses’ – reinforced by the way the nurse in the foreground tenderly holds her patient’s hand while focused on his treatment'.

A Sister (foreground) and Staff Nurse (background) wearing 'National Uniform' attend to an intubated patient on a Blease Manley ventilator - the sliding weight at the top controlled your tidal volume.

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Robert Culshaw @robertculshaw.bsky.social · 29/10/2025

Work (the non-bowler hat one) has been quite difficult recently. I don't think it could be sorted completely by the availability of a mysterious woodland nurse's hut to escape to, but it wouldn't do any harm. Carte Postale c. 1917. #HistNursing

A bucolic woodland scene c.1917.
A Carte Postale of two Nurses outside a thatched hut in dense woodland, presumably in the grounds of a Base Hospital in Northern France.
Seated on the left is a Staff Nurse of the Territorial Force Nursing Service, the small 'T' badges just visible in the corner of her tippet under her cape badge.
On the right is a Matron, rank denoted by the solid red band around her cuff, of Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service (Reserve.
The woodland is in full bloom.

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Robert Culshaw @robertculshaw.bsky.social · 15/10/2025

I found this livestock auction poster from 1890 on the floor of an antique shop and had it framed for @eleanormaybaker.bsky.social. Absolute Units deserve all the fonts. @themerl.bsky.social

Framed late Victorian auction poster advertising FAT SHEEP and FAT BEASTS due for sale at Heyford Railway Station. The choice of fonts is... All of them.

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Robert Culshaw @robertculshaw.bsky.social · 05/10/2025

I turned up in an Oxford reel again. Potentially threatening caption.

Screenshot from an Instagram reel.
I'm stood behind ornate gates wearing a suit, bowler hat and resting on an umbrella, my moustache is visible.

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Robert Culshaw @robertculshaw.bsky.social · 22/08/2025

It caused a stir in the 'green, I can tell you.

Windy Miller, lugging a sack of corn, stands aghast before a statue of a medieval scribe riding a Wyvern.
PC McGarry (No. 452) takes notes.

I am still ill.

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Robert Culshaw @robertculshaw.bsky.social · 01/07/2025

A colleague took this surprisingly atmospheric photograph of me in the early hours on shift this morning. This is nursing.

Me, in navy blue scrubs, at chaise in the corner of the staff room ~03.00 on night duty.
I have a cup of tea, I look displeased.
The walls of the staff room and the box seating are various colours, similar to vomitus aspirate.

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Robert Culshaw @robertculshaw.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

Preparing for a long day on the beat with the Proctors for @ox.ac.uk exams. After effectively six heavy shifts in a row in the day (and night) job, I am just looking forward to a stroll about in the sun.

'Trapped' a comic silhouette postcard by Harry Moden from the 'Varsity Sketches' series, c. 1905.

A student, lighting their cigarette from a gas lamp, surrounded by the Proctor holding a charge book flanked by two Bulldogs.

Because yanno this is what we do, still.

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Robert Culshaw @robertculshaw.bsky.social · 15/04/2025

I was at the Boat Race on Sunday with the @ox.ac.uk delegation, standing alone on the path at Fulham Pier keeping bowler-hatted order (only present Bulldog tall enough to see over the crowds). Odd looks and double takes, but I got a rosette.

A photograph of a dark (Oxford) blue rosette with my name on, worn on my suit lapel.
Shirt appears remarkably still well-starched.

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Robert Culshaw @robertculshaw.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

'Okay, now one with hats.' A pair of Carte Postales depicting a group of Kiwi soldiers with a Padre of the NZ Army Chaplains Department, 1918. Signed to the rear I've tried to identify who is who, I am by no means an expert in the NZEF - I'm mainly here for the hat game. Detail in the ALTs.

Six men and one officer of the New Zealand Army Expeditionary Force pose for a portrait in a French studio c.mid-1918.

The enlisted men are neatly turned out in 'walking out dress'. Boots are well shined, puttees are neatly wrapped. All have overseas service chevrons on their right cuffs showing they had been off NZ shores since at least 1916.

The officer seated in the centre is a (?)Roman Catholic Chaplain (4th Class / Captain).

I like to think these guys were a chance meeting of 'oh you're from New Zealand too?' and off they went for a photograph.

The men and Chaplain remain in the same position, now sporting their iconic 'lemon squeezer' hats. Padre has his stick and is ready for action.

Based on the signatures (and a very basic knowledge of NZ unit insignia) I believe (don't get all twitter on me) the men are as follows:

Back Row L-R
Spr. Hedley Scow(?) (NZ Divisional Signal Company, NZ Army Engineers)
Sgt. George Collins (?Otago Infantry Regiment)
Pte. Joseph L. Crooke (?Otago Infantry Regiment)
Sgt. Latimer J Davies (2nd Canterbury Infantry Regiment)

Front row L-R
E. Frances (1st NZ Machine Gun Corps)
Unidentified Padre!
Cpl. H. R. Moore MM (NZ Rifle Brigade)

The signatures of the depicted men, on the reverse of the first Carte Postale.

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Robert Culshaw @robertculshaw.bsky.social · 05/03/2025

Attempted a new brownie recipe, awaiting review.

Tray of brownies lined with baking paper.
The 'brownie skin' is delicately crackled.

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Robert Culshaw @robertculshaw.bsky.social · 02/03/2025

Please can we all agree that this photograph looks as if @eleanormaybaker.bsky.social is marching her @ballioloxford.bsky.social english lit undergraduates to relieve front line trenches? c.1917 colourised (detail in the ALT).

A platoon of English Literature Undergraduates (Middle English Division) make their way across cold muddy ground towards a green horizon with silhouetted trees in the distance.

A crisp hazy but bright blue sky dappled in misty sunlight adds to the atmosphere of the shot.

They wear jeans and inappropriate footwear despite numerous advisory emails.

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Robert Culshaw @robertculshaw.bsky.social · 16/02/2025

Annual Leave. I'll be dragging the side table to the yard for a photo.

A gentleman poses for a photo in the yard of his house.

A vision of leisure, he is seated in front of the window beside a jug of ale, he wears slippers and smokes a pipe in his shirt sleeves and braces.

He is reading 'Farm, Field and Fireside' an American farming lifestyle magazine. Maybe he's posing for whoever sent it to him from the States?

Images like this make me love deltiology.

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Robert Culshaw @robertculshaw.bsky.social · 10/02/2025

Meanwhile, here on night duty on the 'step-downs' floor of ICU. 'Y is the yawn When the clock points to 4 And nothing is heard Except snore upon snore.' #HistNursing

'The Hopeless Dawn'

Detail from 'Our Hospital ABC' a children's book illustrated by Joyce Dennys, London: John Lane, The Bodley Head. 1916.

An exhausted VAD falls asleep over her nursing notes in the early hours on the ward.

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Robert Culshaw @robertculshaw.bsky.social · 28/01/2025

Orb Pondering with the fellas, 1907. Pretty serious about showing off the size of their balls. Detail, as always, in the ALT.

'Dear Will,
Just a line hoping this finds you all in good health, hoping to see you on Saturday afternoon till Sunday. Let me know by return of post.
M.'

Posted from Stanhope Lines Barracks in Aldershot to Binfield, 1907.

Five British pose with a giant leather ball about the same size of them, three sit with their arms folded, two stand on either side.

They are wearing t-shirts and working dress trousers so have presumably been doing physical training and some form of 'push ball' game, either on foot or horseback?

Either way that's a lot of dubbin.

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Robert Culshaw @robertculshaw.bsky.social · 11/01/2025

This coming Monday is 'Plough Monday' the traditional start of the agricultural year. One of my more bucolic #FWW postcards, a harvesting team of the Army Service Corps and Women's National Land Service Corps. Detail in the ALT. #WW1 @themerl.bsky.social

A steam threshing team of the Army Service Corps with members of the Women's National Land Service Corps (the predecessor to the Women's Land Army) pose as they head out to the fields in full steam c.1915.

The Fowler Ploughing Engine tows a train including a threshing machine covered in tarpaulin, a hay wain, and a shepherd's hut.

The Women wear heavy drill Macintoshes, leather boots and breeches, whilst the men of the ASC wear service dress.

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Robert Culshaw @robertculshaw.bsky.social · 23/12/2024

As I prepare for the first of my Christmas night duties, have one of my favourite festive WWI postcards: little kittens, cottage loaves, and a rather concerned Turkey. Detail in the ALT. #HistNursing #HistMed

Cooks and Orderlies of the Red Cross and Royal Army Medical Corps pose outside the entrance of Dorchester Military Hospital, part of Maumbury Royal Artillery Barracks. December 1914.

A lively bunch, from left to right we have a carver in an apron, the chah-man, a cook with an accordion, two soldiers with two little black kittens posing on their shoulders, the obligatory mandolin player and finally the cook orderly with a rather concerned Turkey under his arm.

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Robert Culshaw @robertculshaw.bsky.social · 28/11/2024

'Love from Sid, Malta July 27th 1916.' Convalescing soldiers at a British Hospital in Malta, a shot almost modern in the composition. @carlajeanstokes.bsky.social #HistNursing #HistMed Detail in the ALT.

A postcard dated July 1916 of five soldiers posing in neatly made ward beds at one of the British Military Hospitals in Malta.

All wear 'hospital blues' baggy and mis-sized convalescent clothing, relaxed and dressed down for the island heat, however one maintains his red cotton tie. The man in the centre successfully manages to get his fancy watch into the shot.

Clearly ambulant patients, some of the men have rolled their bedding up in the background as to set a good military standard, whether Sister required this is another question - let alone sitting on each other's beds!

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Robert Culshaw @robertculshaw.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

You all know I collect postcards, including this one of me drafting my Bluesky posts, c.1917. #HistNursing Detail will most usually be in the ALT.

Miss B. Stephenson, Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service (Reserve). Matron of Wharncliffe War Hospital Sheffield, she is seen working at a desk bedecked with flowers in the hospital gardens. c. 1917.

Miss Stephenson wears the blue-grey ward dress of the QAIMNS(R) and matching tippet, edged in scarlet. Her Matron rank is identified by the solid scarlet bands on her cuffs.

Stephenson was awarded the Royal Red Cross in 1917, upgraded to 1st Class in 1919.

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