I was forever playing around with my blog, not 100% happy with it, but also not hating it enough for change. However, when I removed my header image, my theme (Canard) was able to showcase ‘featured content’ in its stead!

I had to go into the customiser and select a chosen tag in ‘Featured Content’, then the latest five posts that have had that tag applied to them would appear as my featured content – in the place where my header image used to sit. For July I chose to feature ‘blue plaques’.

Dr Dominic Joseph Poggi blue plaque, New Brighton, Merseyside

Dr Dominic Joseph Poggi blue plaque, New Brighton, Merseyside

I have written six posts dedicated to blue plaques since deciding on my featured content theme for July. I found that blue plaques were an easy prompt for writing a blog. Below are the posts that I wrote to coincide with my theme.

Alan Turing: WWII Code-breaker

Enid Blyton Lived Here

Alfred Bestall Lived Here

William Marsden Lived Here

Titanic Captain Edward John Smith Lived Here

Cesar Picton: an African in Georgian Britain

I had also written two previous posts on the blue plaque theme when I happened to come across them on days out.

Millicent Garret Fawcett Lived Here

Mayflower Passenger Pilgrim Father William Mullins Lived Here

Using featured content has not made me focus on just that – take a look at July’s archives. I’ve had quite a month: two Princess Diana posts, two family history posts, two Oscar Wilde posts and a couple of others besides those with the tag of blue plaque!

I used the Blue Plaques of London App when I was in central London this month. The screen did freeze and it took a couple of hours for my location to update, which was frustrating. Eventually, I realised that searching for anybody on the App would refresh my location, but by then I was tired and limping (I’d strained my Achilles heel a couple of weeks before) and my energy had flagged and so after a LOT of walking I gave up after locating William Marsden’s blue plaque at Lincoln’s Inn Fields. 

Focussing on blue plaques for the month of July does not preclude other blue plaque articles on HistorianRuby. I still haven’t written my post on David Garrick and I photographed his plaque in November last year.

Yesterday I drove around Wimbledon and photographed a couple of blue plaques dedicated to people of note, Georgette Heyer and Josephine Butler. So there’s more to come.

Georgette Heyer blue plaque, Wimbledon

Georgette Heyer blue plaque, Wimbledon

I was thwarted at Josephine Butler’s former property, two cars, scaffolding and a workman on the scaffolding meant any photograph I took would be compromised.

Josephine Butler blue plaque, Wimbledon

Josephine Butler blue plaque, Wimbledon

Images author’s own.