Believing the unbelievable: the myth of Russians 'with snow on their boots' in the United Kingdom, 1914

PublishedArticle“This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Cultural and Social History on1 May 2015, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/ 10.2752/147800414X13802176314528.”In the opening months of the First World War, a rumour spread across the United Kingdom that Russian soldiers – identified by the ‘snow on their boots’ – had landed in Scotland en route to the Western Front. Despite being relegated to history’s footnotes as a comical but meaningless episode, this article takes the rumour seriously. Unconcerned with questions of ‘truth’ (the rumour was dismissed as fantastical by late October 1914), I will argue that the real value of this story is in what it reveals about British society at the outbreak of war. The rumour emerged as the British Expeditionary Force entered its first big test of the Great War – the battle of Mons – which would result in Germany’s first great victory and resulting in thousands of casualties. As such the rumour can be interpreted as a form of ‘secular apparition’ bringing consolation to many. It was one of the ways ordinary people made sense of their newly threatening world

Variation in the SERPINA6SERPINA1 locusalters morning plasma cortisol, hepatic corticosteroid binding globulin expression, gene expressionin peripheral tissues, and risk of cardiovascular disease

The stress hormone cortisol modulates fuel metabolism, cardiovascular homoeostasis, mood, inflammation and cognition. The CORtisol NETwork (CORNET) consortium previously identified a single locus associated with morning plasma cortisol. Identifying additional genetic variants that explain more of the variance in cortisol could provide new insights into cortisol biology and provide statistical power to test the causative role of cortisol in common diseases. The CORNET consortium extended its genome-wide association meta-analysis for morning plasma cortisol from 12,597 to 25,314 subjects and from ~2.2 M to ~7 M SNPs, in 17 population-based cohorts of European ancestries. We confirmed the genetic association with SERPINA6/SERPINA1. This locus contains genes encoding corticosteroid binding globulin (CBG) and α1-antitrypsin. Expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) analyses undertaken in the STARNET cohort of 600 individuals showed that specific genetic variants within the SERPINA6/SERPINA1 locus influence expression of SERPINA6 rather than SERPINA1 in the liver. Moreover, trans-eQTL analysis demonstrated effects on adipose tissue gene expression, suggesting that variation

Variation in the SERPINA6/SERPINA1 locus alters morning plasma cortisol, hepatic corticosteroid binding globulin expression, gene expression in peripheral tissues, and risk of cardiovascular disease

The stress hormone cortisol modulates fuel metabolism, cardiovascular homoeostasis, mood, inflammation and cognition. The CORtisol NETwork (CORNET) consortium previously identified a single locus associated with morning plasma cortisol. Identifying additional genetic variants that explain more of the variance in cortisol could provide new insights into cortisol biology and provide statistical power to test the causative role of cortisol in common diseases. The CORNET consortium extended its genome-wide association meta-analysis for morning plasma cortisol from 12,597 to 25,314 subjects and from similar to 2.2 M to similar to 7 M SNPs, in 17 population-based cohorts of European ancestries. We confirmed the genetic association with SERPINA6/SERPINA1. This locus contains genes encoding corticosteroid binding globulin (CBG) and alpha 1-antitrypsin. Expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) analyses undertaken in the STARNET cohort of 600 individuals showed that specific genetic variants within the SERPINA6/SERPINA1 locus influence expression of SERPINA6 rather than SERPINA1 in the liver. Moreover, trans-eQTL analysis demonstrated effects on adipose tissue gene expression, suggesting that variations in CBG levels have an effect on delivery of cortisol to peripheral tissues. Two-sample Mendelian randomisation analyses provided evidence that each genetically-determined standard deviation (SD) increase in morning plasma cortisol was associated with increased odds of chronic ischaemic heart disease (0.32, 95% CI 0.06-0.59) and myocardial infarction (0.21, 95% CI 0.00-0.43) in UK Biobank and similarly in CARDIoGRAMplusC4D. These findings reveal a causative pathway for CBG in determining cortisol action in peripheral tissues and thereby contributing to the aetiology of cardiovascular disease.</p

The First World War in the Classroom: Teaching and the Construction of Cultural Memory. Final project report, May 2014.

This report details the results of a year-long exploratory research project funded by the AHRC, carried out by Dr Catriona Pennell (History, University of Exeter) and Dr Ann-Marie Einhaus (English Literature, Northumbria University). Its findings are based on a two-day workshop, three regional focus groups and an online survey, and restricted to secondary schools in England due to the exploratory nature of the research grant. The target audience of this report is purposefully general; we are not writing exclusively for the academy or educational practitioners. Instead, we have aimed our findings at teachers, researchers, educationalists, museum education officers, university outreach teams, exam boards, textbook authors, policymakers and anyone else who may be interested in the way the First World War is taught in English secondary schools on the eve of the centenary

A kingdom united: British and Irish popular responses to the outbreak of war, July to December 1914

THESIS 8527In the current literature on Britain and Ireland during the First World War there is a significant gap concerning public responses to the outbreak throughout the autumn of 1914. My project rectifies this situation by being the first systematic analysis of British and Irish public opinion at the outbreak of the Great War. The first aim of the thesis is to replace simplistic accounts of war enthusiasm by a more nuanced and complex picture of popular sentiment in Britain and Ireland. The second is to integrate Ireland into a UK-wide study of the First World War. This thesis takes a chronological, analytical and thematic approach to the outbreak of war in 1914. Chapter One details feelings of tension in the lead-up to the announcement of war on 4th August and follows the chaos and disruption that followed during the first few weeks of the conflict. Chapters Two to Four examine three dominant themes in detail- the national cause, perceptions of the enemy, and encounters with violence, both real and imagined. Chapter Five looks closely at the importance of volunteerism in the British experience of ?entering? war, and, in particular, questions whether enlistment to the army was indicative of enthusiasm for war. Although Wales and Scotland are integrated into the thematic, regional and chronological analysis of the previous chapters, Chapter Six is dedicated solely to Ireland owing to the uniqueness of her political situation in 1914. Ireland was both divided internally over Home Rule and at odds with Britain. How united was the United Kingdom following the outbreak of war? Chapter Seven looks at the United Kingdom as a whole between September and December 1914 establishing to what extent British and irish people ?settled? into war. Going ?below? generalised national histories, my project places equal weight on ?national? and regional reactions to the outbreak of war. I have constructed the national picture using such sources as The Times and other major national newspapers, memoirs and papers of contemporary political figures, parliamentary debates and external eyewitnesses such as foreign diplomats. This research allowed me to build up an impression of responses, such as anti-German riots, fears of invasion, popular myths about the war, food hoarding, alien arrests, patriotic demonstrations and dissent. However, the national perspective has not subsumed local reactions. Comparison means selection, and I have therefore chosen a variety of regions to study, based on geographical position, demography and comparative potential. My comparison encompasses not just parts of England but also Scotland, Wales and Ireland (north and south) so that I am able to draw conclusions at the level of the United Kingdom as a whole. Within England I have chosen to compare Essex, Devon, Lancashire, London and the West Midlands. Essex was selected for investigation as it was on the ?front? of the British home front in 1914 and was compared with Devon, another rural county. Lancashire and the West Midlands were selected as major urban industrial centres of the United Kingdom in 1914. London, as capital, was selected in order to provide a sense of reactions to the war at a ?national? level. I approached each ?zone? in a similar way. The thematic grid that I established at the national level was placed over local sources, such as diaries, letters, committee minutes, cartoons, photographs, oral recollections, memoirs and newspapers. This allowed me to compare national and regional reactions and also to compare different regional reactions. This thesis makes two fundamental conclusions. Firstly, it demonstrates that describing the reactions of over 40 million British and Irish people to the outbreak of war in 1914 as either enthusiastic in the British case or disengaged in the Irish is over-simplified and inadequate. A society as complex as the United Kingdom in the Edwardian era did not have a single, uniform reaction to such a major event as the outbreak of European war. Emotional reactions to the war were ambiguous and complex, and changed over time. A general emotional chronology can be traced over the course of the first five months of war. Surprise at the outbreak of war on 4th August was followed by a fortnight of chaos and dislocation. However, by late August the majority of the population were beginning to understand what was involved in modern warfare. People voluntarily rallied around the national cause, purged their fears of the external German enemy by seeking scapegoats within, in the form of enemy spies and aliens, and imagined and encountered violence. By early-September most people were firmly ?inside the war?, of which they could see no end. The second conclusion derives from situating Ireland firmly within the history of the United Kingdom at war in 1914. Whilst domestic politics in Britain were suspended, just as in France and Germany, war became part of the politics of domestic peace in Ireland. Despite concerns over potential dissidence amongst Irish nationalists, following the outbreak of war the majority of Irish men and women of all political persuasions rallied around the British cause and supported the war. Any dissent amongst advanced nationalists was limited and those involved knew how constrained their position was. Therefore despite the fragility of the relationship between Britain and Ireland, Kingdom was United in 1914

Learning lessons from war? Inclusions and exclusions in teaching First World War history in English secondary schools

AcceptedArticleThe recent centenary anniversaries of the First World War have underscored how commemoration of the war is best understood as being about keeping the memory alive, especially since those who experienced it first-hand have all but disappeared. Consequently, the role of youth as vessels of memory is central. This article explores how secondary school pupils in England are integrated into centenary practices of remembrance with a particular focus on education. It will first establish the way that young people are both surrounded by and central to the commemoration of the First World War in 2014 and the role played by education in transmitting certain memories, ideas, and values to the next generation. It will then highlight which narratives of the war are included in and excluded from secondary-level classroom history teaching via a close examination of teaching content, method and purpose. In conclusion, this article will raise important concerns relating to the ‘memory messages’ that are being communicated via history teaching of the First World War and the consequences of such narratives regarding the replication of power relations, a continued inability to deal with Britain’s colonial legacy, and an uncritical normalizing of the military in the minds of young people