Blog
Churchill and the railways – watch my episode of Combat Trains on the History Channel this Thursday January 28
How Britain’s railways won the war. I’m helping narrate the History Channel series Combat Trains this Thursday January 28 at 8.30pm talking about the vital role of the railways on the Home Front. I’d be delighted if you’d join me and watch it http://bit.ly/1JotO3t
Read More Nice write-up for my recent talk to the Lakes Line Rail Users’ Group – one of Britain’s most charming railways
From the group’s latest Winter Bulletin The 2015 AGM This year’s AGM was held in the Georgian Room in Kendal Town Hall. Filled with an appreciative audience it showed that you don’t have to offer crisis and bad news to tempt peo-ple into a meeting. The formal part of the AGM passed swiftly. Reports […]
Read More A journey back to the WW1 trenches to discover the soul of my grandfather
IT WAS the war wound that prevented me getting on with my grandfather. Too late to regret it now but perhaps, a century after he received the blow that crippled him, I can at least attempt to piece together the events around that moment by visiting the place where his life changed for ever. To everyone […]
Read More My odyssey to the trenches of World War One to discover the soul of my grandfather
IT WAS the war wound that prevented me getting on with my grandfather. Too late to regret it now but perhaps, a century after he received the blow that crippled him, I can at least attempt to piece together the events around that moment by visiting the place where his life changed for ever. To everyone […]
Read More Welcome back to the Flying Scotsman – the world’s most famous locomotive
GREAT to see the mighty Flying Scotsman back on the rails today after her many tribulations. Let’s hope that the skilled engineers appointed by the National Railway Museum have exorcised what many have long regarded as the “Curse of the Flying Scotsman”. And let’s not forget that great man Sir William McAlpine, whose rescue of […]
Read More ‘The Trains Now Departed – ‘The best railway book I have read in 60 years’
I RECEIVED this letter from a reader of ‘The Trains Now Departed’ at the New Year. It expresses such a lovely sentiment, I thoughtI would share it: Dear Mr Williams, I have just finished reading “The Trains Now Departed” and I think it is the most enjoyable railway book I have ever read in a […]
Read More The Trains now Departed: Sixteen Excursions into the Lost Delights of Britain’s Railways has been a brilliant seller for Christmas
WITH just a week to go to Christmas, my latest book is No. 2 in the Amazon charts
Read More A billet without the bullets: an extraordinary refuge from the First World War is still going strong 100 years on
By Michael Williams It’s hell out there on the Ypres frontline. Crowds file off tourist buses marked Passchendaele and Tyne Cot, shops are touting maps, medals and memorabilia and the Flanders Fields museum is handing out digital history packages on plastic Fitbit-style wristbands. Only halfway though four years of centenary commemorations, the World War One […]
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