Last Wednesday I crossed London beneath rain clouds and under the weight of a backpack full of books and hiking equipment. Back in the UK for a handful of events, I had taken advantage of my free time to visit Dartmoor National Park and stock up on reading material without having to shell out for … More Memory & 7/7 @ Tavistock Square
On a grey Saturday earlier this month I took part in a walking event on the archaeology of austerity entitled Narratives and Counter-Narratives – A Line Through Contemporary London. Organised by James Dixon and my colleague Lorna Richardson, the walk was the final installment of the Public Archaeology 2015 project that aimed to widen public … More Buried Memories of Austerity Past: The Moorgate Tube Crash and King’s Cross Fire
The UK’s annual national festival of the humanities, Being Human, drew to a close on the 22nd November but the memory of its many inspiring events lingers on. For me one of the highlights of the festival was the Goldsmith’s series of Radical New Cross events and more specifically a panel discussion coordinated and chaired … More Lewisham 13th August 1977: The Forgotten Battle?
I am really happy that my first publication of 2016 has been released. It is a development of a paper I presented in Rome back in 2012 and has been published as a contributory chapter in a book edited by Keir Reeves, Geoffrey R. Bird, Laura James, Birger Stichelbaut and Jean Bourgeois. The book, Battlefield … More New Publication: The memories & myths of WWII civilian suffering in the railways beneath London & Berlin
Just over a week ago, on Friday 13th November at 20:20 (GMT), I and my co-organisers and co-contributors were wrapping-up an event in the Northern Heating Chambers beneath University of London’s Senate House. We were ushering the remaining members of the audience towards a fire-exit that had been re-purposed as the event’s main access point, … More What might the Paris attacks mean for the city’s ‘Cat and Mouse’ Urban Exploration?
Tickets for the Senate House Revealed Project that I have co-organised with Michael Eades, Carlos Galviz and John Stone at The University of London’s School of Advanced Study as part of the 2015 Being Human festival were put on general release yesterday. Places for the limited exclusive tours are already nearly all gone but there … More Senate House Revealed – Talking Underground
Just over two weeks ago London, and arguably the UK as a whole, marked the 10th anniversary of the July 7th 2005 London bombings that targeted the British capital’s transport infrastructure, claimed the lives of 52 people, injured many more and also involved the deaths of the 4 suicide bombers who carried out the attack. … More Walking Together and Walking Alone: The Recent Commemoration of 7/7 and Jean Charles de Menezes.
Samuel Merrill 