Thanks mainly to the impressive  British Newspaper Archive, I’ve been able to considerably expand the collection of newspaper stories on the Life page in recent weeks. These stories chart our hero’s misadventures through the words of newspaper reporters both locally and as far away as Manchester or Yorkshire.

In an effort to draw people to this section of the site, I’ve changed the way the top right panel on the home page works. Previously, if today’s date is the same as a date given in one of the poems, you get a link to that poem as an “on this day” link. Otherwise you’d get a random couplet of the day.

Now, if no “on this day” poem is found, a second check is made to see if any McGonagall newspaper stories were published on this date. If they were, a link is given to the “In the news today in 18-whatever” page instead of a random couplet. So, for example, today there’s a link to a story published on 11th April 1893. Once you’ve read the story, you can use the next/previous buttons to explore the others.

Keep reading, and if anyone out there finds a newspaper cutting that I’ve missed, I’ll be happy to add it.