Articles by Jo Foster

The well-known dog trainer, Barbara Woodhouse, was a key figure of the 1980s - and even today, 30 years after her death, anyone who was around in the decade will remember her eccentric manner, including her firm command of "Sit!" as she trained dogs in her own inimitable manner. She rose to fame in 1980, thanks to her popular series, Training Dogs the Woodhouse Way, after she self-promoted h...

The Beatles had been together for around a decade when they officially split up in April 1970. As the band that defined the 1960s, their demise was seen as almost catastrophic by their legion of fans around the world. After the Beatles' bubble burst, guitarist, singer and songwriter Lennon was still only 29 years old. He began to find his own voice as a solo artist, away from the world's big...

The famous British sitcom, Bread, focused on the daily grind of the working-class Boswell family, who lived in Liverpool and faced a continual struggle to make ends meet. It was created in 1986, during the golden era of British television, by the late Carla Lane, who hailed from Liverpool herself. The 1980s were something of a gloomy era for many Brits, as the UK's youth unemployment level h...

Archaeologists who have found a 400-year-old shipwreck off the coast of Portugal have described it as the nation's "most important find of all time" from a heritage perspective. The vessel was first discovered on 3rd September, off the coast of the seaside resort of Cascais, on the outskirts of Lisbon. It is believed to have been returning from India to Lisbon with a cargo of spices in the l...

Most of us have nostalgic memories of our schooldays - whether it's school dinners, too much homework, a particular teacher, hating your school uniform, or even playing truant, we often look back with a smile. In the case of British ska band Madness, they wrote a song about it: their 1980 hit single, Baggy Trousers, is about them growing up in the late 1960s/early '70s and the mischief they ...

The famous Looney Tunes characters Tweetie and Sylvester (an innocent canary and a wily cat) were created during the golden era of animation in the United States in the mid-20th century. Warner Bros launched Looney Tunes in 1930 as an animated series of short comedy films, introducing many comic characters such as Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd, Daffy Duck, Foghorn Leghorn, Road Runner and Pepé Le P...

Sir Alex Ferguson is one of the greatest football managers of all time, having guided Manchester United through their most successful period in the club's history. Prior to becoming a manager, he played for a number of Scottish clubs as a forward and was the league's top goal scorer. After 27 years, his long and illustrious career ended when he retired from managing Manchester United in the ...

As a result of his role in the design of more than 170 parks and gardens in the 18th century, the landscape architect, Capability Brown, has been dubbed "England's greatest gardener".  His real name was Lancelot Brown, but he earned the nickname Capability because he often told clients their garden had the "capability" to be improved. He had a major influence on Victorian landscape gardens, ...

As a dedicated follower of the Rastafarian faith, the legendary Jamaican singer, Bob Marley, became the face of reggae in the 1970s. His unique brand of music touched people all over the world, having a major impact on the religious movement. The Rastafari movement is believed to have started in the 1930s in Jamaica, after political leader Marcus Garvey's famous speech, when he told follower...

Lonnie Donegan was known as the King of Skiffle, catapulting the 1950s music genre into mainstream pop culture. He enjoyed more than 90 hit singles during a career spanning more than 50 years, with some of his best-sellers having a quirky edge, such as the catchy ditty, My Old Man's a Dustman. He said in an interview that he was trying to sing "acceptable folk music", with the aim of widenin...