Tag: Second World War

Retro Sunday: Saskatchewan Roughrider ashtrays…and the Italian connection

I know that sports teams have avid followings in many cities, but I doubt there are many places whose pride and interest in a team exceeds that of the fans of the Saskatchewan Roughriders. I won’t delve into it here—there are whole books about it, not to mention art exhibits—but although there are certainly people …

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Things I Found in My Mother-in-Law’s House (but I actually put there myself): The Army Song Book

OK, this is a rather odd entry in this series because, although it dates from 1941 (pretty much the same time as the paperbacks I blogged about previously), this book was not actually found in my mother-in-law’s house: it was actually found in my mother’s house, because it belonged to my father, James Willett (whose …

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Lest We Forget: Remembrance Day resources on the Web

This week’s CBC Web column… **** Most flowers are dead this time of year, but there’s one that only blooms in November: the poppy of Remembrance Day. King George V created Remembrance Day in 1919 in memory of members of the armed forces who were killed during war. But it’s hard to remember a war …

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Tired of computer flight sims?

Now you can build your own Spitfire…from a kit. The importer of the packs, Kieran Padden, says that business is booming – and for many reasons. “It is so easy to fly,” he claims of the plane that costs a tenth of the original to buy. “Even old Spitfire pilots I have spoken to say …

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Wartime rationing and making do

In today’s war against environmental degradation, there is an oft-repeated slogan: “Reduce, Re-use, Recycle.” Fifty years ago there was a very different kind of war going on, but there was a very similar slogan: “Use it Up, Wear it Out, Make it Do and Do Without.” Every country involved in the Second World War had …

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Hobart’s Funnies

Necessity is the mother of invention, as the old saying goes; and in warfare, necessities can be urgent indeed. As a result, many technological innovations occur during wartime. The First World War brought us huge advances in aircraft design; the Second World War brought us atomic energy. But on a less grandiose scale, technical innovations …

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