The Learning Age

St Helens – the post-industrial town in the northwest of England where I spent much of my first two decades on Earth – popped up in my news feed this week. The leader of Reform-led St Helens Council announced that the authority would ‘not be observing Black History Month’...

A lot of ink has been spilt trying to show that William Shakespeare – the author of the 36 plays compiled in the First Folio – was someone other than the glovemaker’s son of that name born in Stratford-upon-Avon on or around 23 April 1564.

Amateur literacy sleuths have found it difficult to imagine how someone from relatively humble circumstances – certainl...