1,750 years before Richard Baker Romans built a temple here & @UCLarchaeology & @theroyalparks now digging looking for the temple outbuildings in Greenwich Park. Already making finds but if they're hoping to solve mystery of where Watling Street crossed the park I think I know One possibility is it entered (until Henry V's brother casually blocked Watling St by enclosing Greenwich Park for hunting in 1437) just behind temple where they're digging. But old maps & laser radar have convinced me it was further South near where Vanbrugh Fields & Park meet

I've found a little more about the black Battle of Trafalgar veteran Richard Baker - photographed at Greenwich Hospital @orncgreenwich with his comrades nearly 50 years later - including perhaps why he joined the Navy when he did. We know he was born a slave in Baltimore in 1770 & muster lists show that he was a Landsman on HMS Leviathan in 1794 which means he was in his first year at sea. After a year you became an Ordinary Seaman & after 5 an Able Seaman. So what changed in 1793? Nearly half the population of Maryland were slaves & the slavers kept

10 years ago Sir Jimmy #Savile had just died & BBC News was preparing state funeral type coverage of his memorial service. Meanwhile in the Newsnight office myself, the brilliant, brave (& very funny) Liz MacKean & @hamlivingston were preparing to expose..
theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/n… him as a monster. Poppy (who wrote this piece) was working with Liz on another project at the time & saw what happened. I suppose the main revelation is that it was Liz who leaked the BBC's cover up to the press. At the time I (wrongly) thought it was Mark Williams Thomas...