This week I realised, as I nattered with my TAs after class, that I had just uttered the phrase 'back in my day' without the slightest sense of irony. I was (and still am) distraught - surely this is the first step down the slippery slope that ends with me in carpet slippers on a rocking chair telling stories about the good ol' days? I made myself feel better by listening to Radio 1 all the way home and not throwing up once. What has this got to do with history or re-enacting

"They were like a wall of brass." An epithet that looms large over the history of the regiment, a fearless last stand in the face of appalling odds, a doomed attempt, maybe, to protect the rear guard of the Royalist army. Rupert's Bluecoats were destroyed as a fighting force at the Battle of Naseby, 1645 during the Royalist rout. Parliamentarian sources note them as repelling all attackers before they were broken and Fairfax, the Parliament Lord General, took their standards