The 1,000-year soap opera

From Richard III to The Crown, monarchs make for perfect drama

On top of the world

Lewis Pugh, the first person to swim across the North Pole, admires a new Arctic exhibition at the British Museum

The bad taste of COVID-19

As coronavirus sufferers are discovering, a sense of smell is essential to enjoying the great pleasures of eating

Whodunnit? Dick Francis or his wife?

William Cook solves the ultimate mystery of the jockey, born 100 years ago. Did he write his bestsellers himself?

The Wigeon

At Elmley Nature Reserve on the Isle of Sheppey, last March, numerous premigrating wigeon (Anas penelope) were resting.

Orchards are buzzing with birds and bees

JAMES LE FANU

Barbados revisited

Forty years ago, a teenage James Pembroke killed lizards in the blistering Caribbean heat. Now he rejoices in early colonial buildings

My Pilgrim father

In 1957, a bold British journalist built a replica of the Mayflower and sailed it across the Atlantic.

Love, Vicki

Victoria Wood’s letters reveal a shy, perfectionist, affectionate genius, shadowed by a lonely childhood, says her biographer, Jasper Rees

My Lockdown Deafness

Social distancing and an earwax fatberg made Oliver Pritchett face up to the truth – he was losing his hearing

The shipwreck that rocked the monarchy

Nine hundred years ago, Prince William, Henry I’s heir, drowned in the White Ship disaster – leading to civil war, says Charles Spencer

Overlooked Britain My elegy for a country church memorial LUCINDA LAMBTON

The poet Thomas Gray is buried in Stoke Poges by a monument inscribed with his greatest poem

The glorious Guinness girls

A century ago, three heiresses lit up the Roaring Twenties in Ireland’s loveliest houses with charm and gaiety.

The thrill of the steeplechase

Jumping over the sticks is often regarded with disdain by its richer, flat-racing cousin – but not by Robert Bathurst

My glorious fleet of Matchbox minis

No child of the 1950s will ever forget how they chose to squander their pocket money – were they lucky enough actually to receive any.

Realm of bright water

Sixty years after Gavin Maxwell published his Scottish classic, Kevin Pilley visits Eilean Bàn, the island home of the writer and his otters

Getting Dressed - Magician who made East meet West

Interior designer Alidad combines Iran, Islam and Austria in his look

Heavenly metal

Harry Mount tours the Tottenham factory that’s replaced miles of railings ripped out of 40 London squares during the war

Germaine Greer unmasked

Fifty years after The Female Eunuch, the writer tells Valerie Grove about unsexy Clive James, her transgender war and scalping herself

The critic who cared too much

Ian Nairn wrote brilliantly about buildings, made glorious TV – and drowned his sorrows too deeply, remembers Jonathan Meades

Travel: Hidden Staffordshire

William Cook visits Samuel Johnson’s Lichfield house and Tamworth, home to Robert Peel and Queen Aethelflaed

Best Sherlock Holmes on TV? Elementary

Jeremy Brett, who died 25 years ago, captured the master sleuth perfectly, says Damian Thompson, an obsessive fan

My work is much more fun than fun

Paul Ewart, an Oxford research physicist, recently won a landmark case. He wanted to be allowed to carry on working beyond the statutory university retirement age of 67. Ewart argued that, at 70, he still had important research work to do.

The heroes – and villains – of the Blitz

Eighty years ago, there was plenty of Blitz spirit, says Joshua Levine. There was also lots of crime, terror and illicit sex

Stammer blow

A stammerer since childhood, Nigel Phillips enjoyed and endured a successful and stressful language-teaching career. Did anything help?

Overlooked Britain What Delaval brought to the stable

Sir Francis Delaval added an equine palace to Seaton Delaval, Vanbrugh’s baroque jewel

King of the Army

Sergeant Elvis Presley finished his service in Germany sixty years ago – and became a greater singer, says Andrew M Brown

Gyles Brandreth's Diary: How to kill your wife and get away with it

P D James and John Mortimer gave me tips for the perfect murder

A right royal farce

As Spitting Image returns, producer John Lloyd recalls how the show was nearly banned

Travel: Bernini's Rome

No artist left a greater mark on the city than the great baroque sculptor and architect. Loyd Grossman follows in his footsteps