Patrick Baty

OTD Blessed Maria Karłowska (1865-1935) died. The founder of the Sisters of the Divine Shepherd of Divine Providence. She worked with poor & abandoned people with an emphasis on girls. She tried to aid prostitutes & helped them to build another kind of life. She was a cousin.

@HarryBucknall @StanfordsTravel @LittleBrownUK Ordered. I'm certain it will inspire our walking.

60 maps, 6,518 miles later and - after the odd hiccough and cancer - a book … thank you @StanfordsTravel thank you @LittleBrownUK … I am forever in your debt … To purchase buy.stripe.com/bJe28r5fge831J…

This guy took G.I. Joe to the next level.

Happy St Patrick’s Day from Shaun and the flock! ☘️ #HappyStPatricksDay #LuckOfTheIrish #StPatricksDay

@PhoneyMajor has shared the perspective of the French and the French Special Forces in this @spectator piece. “If it’s the word of insurgents against the word of French soldiers, France always stands with its soldiers”. How different to the way the UK indulged for years the despicable Phil Shiner and his conveyor belt of IRGC-generated “cases” from Southern Iraq. State-sponsored lawfare is just another subversive tool used to break an opponents willingness to fight…. And so easy to conduct against a UK whose MoD insists, foolishly, on making combat conducted by its soldiers subject to the 1998 Human Rights Act…

This is🇵🇱Poland. This is who we are. Have you ever wondered how it happened that Poles never surrender? A nation that survived 123 years of partition, endless wars, uprisings crushed one after another, betrayals, occupations, and genocides, yet kept fighting with honour, bleeding for freedom and believing in victory even when the odds screamed otherwise. What unbreakable qualities does a nation need to endure that? You can find the answer in this video. Watch this powerful reminder of Polish strength, courage, and unbreakable spirit – shared in honour of today's Men's Day. At the Paris 2024 Paralympics, Polish high jumper Łukasz Mamczarz cleared 1.77 m – on one leg. 📷History_Defined

The sheep built Britain. Not metaphorically. Materially. The wool trade was England's dominant industry from the 12th to the 16th century. Wool funded the Plantagenet wars. Wool paid for the Crusades. Wool built the merchant class that eventually built Parliament into the institution that could challenge the Crown. Edward III, who placed the Woolsack in the House of Lords in the 14th century, understood that the sheep was the economy. He didn't need an economist to tell him. He needed to tell the Lord Chancellor, every time he sat down, what England was built on. The Lord Chancellor is still sitting on it. But the story of what the sheep actually built goes further than finance. The monasteries of medieval England were the country's largest wool producers. Fountains Abbey. Rievaulx. Tintern. Hundreds of houses running thousands of acres of sheep pasture, selling wool to Italian and Flemish merchants through the Staple. The monasteries used the income to build. The buildings they built are still standing. Britain's stone architecture, its landscape character, its legal and commercial institutions, its parliamentary traditions: all of it downstream, in some part, of the wool clip. The sheep didn't just feed Britain. The sheep financed it. Every great building, every cathedral close, every wool town with its church that dwarfs the houses around it: the sheep was there first. The sheep paid for it. Show some respect.

Remembering Major Hugh Lindsay, a very good friend and fellow Lancer, who was killed on this day 1988, while skiing with the (then) Prince of Wales.

Thinking about the time that I said that I was distantly related to Marie Curie and a guy explained “It’s pronounced Mariah Carey”

Women's Military Training 1923-1939. What a story! Watch now our NEW online exhibition! 🖼️📌1944.pl/en/exhibition/… #WomensDay

@Amelia558rs Do not paint it (please).

Ladies and Gentlemen, if you enjoy this account, and care for the memory, and future of London, kindly follow (if you don't already) and share this post in order to help others find us. Thank you all for your support. 🤝

@LeandadeLisle Glorious.

Aunt Monica and her cat Suki in 1970. I rather love these v period portraits. Her husband had been a POW in Colditz

Greetings to others who may have been commissioned OTD 1976. Good times.

On this day in 1940 Joseph Stalin and 5 other members of the Soviet Politbureau, sign an order for the execution of 25,700 Polish intelligentsia, including 14,700 Polish POWs, in what will become known as the Katyn massacre. Never forget. 🇵🇱

‘Every man thinks less of himself for not having been a soldier, or at sea’. The psychological problem for the likes of Hermer, Sands, Starmer, Powell.

In the photos, Witold Pilecki hides his hands because his fingernails had been torn out during brutal interrogation by the communists before his show trial, which began on 3 March 1948. He is considered one of the greatest wartime heroes. He was the only man who volunteered to be sent to the German Death Camp in Auschwitz to organise resistance and gather intelligence about the German atrocities. In 1943, Witold Pilecki escaped from Auschwitz to join the Home Army (AK). The communists later captured him, brutally tortured, falsely accused of espionage, and ultimately sentenced to death.

Terry-Thomas, because it's always Terry-Thomas time.

“Into the face of the young man who sat on the terrace of the Hotel Magnifique at Cannes there had crept a look of furtive shame, the shifty hangdog look which announces that an Englishman is about to speak French.”

Nicked from another page. Nice to know the MOD has a sense of humour… Never Mess with Officialdom! Lt. Colonel Robert Maclaren retired from the British Army in 2001 after a long career. He received a letter from the Personnel Department of the Ministry of Defence setting out details of his pension and the tax-free ‘lump sum’ award, based upon his years of service, that he would receive in addition to his pension. The letter read: "Dear Lt. Colonel Maclaren, We write to confirm that you retired from the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards on 1st March 2001 at the rank of Lt Colonel, having been commissioned into the British Army at Edinburgh Castle as a 2nd Lieutenant on 1st February 1366. Accordingly your lump sum payment, based on years served, has been calculated as £68,500. You will receive a cheque for this amount in due course. Yours sincerely Army Paymaster” Lt Colonel Maclaren replied; “Dear Paymaster, Thank you for your recent letter confirming that I served as an officer in the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards between 1st February 1366 and 1st March 2001 – a total period of 635 years and 1 month. I note however that you have calculated my lump sum to be £68,500, which seems to be considerably less than it should be bearing in mind my length of service since I received my commission from King Edward III. By my calculation, allowing for interest payments and currency fluctuations, my lump sum should actually be £6, 427, 586, 619. 47p. I look forward to receiving a cheque for this amount in due course. Yours sincerely, Robert Maclaren (Lt Col Retd)” A month passed by and a stout manilla envelope from the Ministry of Defence arrived, it read: “Dear Lt Colonel Maclaren, We have reviewed the circumstances of your case as outlined in your recent letter to us dated 8th March inst. We do indeed confirm that you were commissioned into the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards by King Edward III at Edinburgh Castle on 1st February 1366, and that you served continuously for the following 635 years and 1 month. We have re-calculated your pension and have pleasure in confirming that the lump sum payment due to you is indeed £6, 427, 586, 619. 47p. However, we also note that according to our records you are the only surviving officer who had command responsibility during the following campaigns and battles; The Wars of the Roses 1455 -1485 The Civil War 1642 -1651 The Napoleonic War 1803 – 1815 The Crimean War (1853 – 1856) The Boer War (1899 -1902) World War One (1914-1918). We would therefore wish to know what happened to the following, which do not appear to have been returned to Quartermaster's Stores by you on completion of operations: 9765 Cannons 26,785 Swords 12,889 Pikes 127,345 Rifles (with bayonets) 28,987 horses (fully kitted) Plus three complete marching bands with instruments and banners. We have calculated the total cost of these items, allowing for interest payments and currency fluctuations, and they amount to £6,427,518.119.47p. We have therefore subtracted this sum from your lump sum, leaving a residual amount of £68,500, for which you will receive a cheque in due course. Yours sincerely . . . .” 🤣🤣🤣🤣