Helen Keller’s birthplace stirs the senses

Museum honours ‘America’s First Lady of Courage’

Helen Keller’s birthplace stirs the sensesTUSCUMBIA, Alabama - The irony is striking. I’m free to tour the childhood home that was for a while her prison, though happily also the site of her liberation. I can hear birds she couldn’t hear, from somewhere in the magnolias and mimosas she couldn’t see. I can trace in an hour the life that…

Alabama museum pays tribute to the father of the blues

Visit the Alabama birthplace of W.C. Handy

Alabama museum pays tribute to the father of the bluesIt may be in St. Louis, Memphis and New York that W.C. Handy popularized the blues. But it’s in Florence, Alabama, that his musical journey began. Dubbed “The Father of the Blues,” Handy was born in 1873 in this city whose population is closing in on 40,000. The family’s two-room cabin, built of white poplar…

Guernsey is a hot spot for Second World War buffs

Channel Islands were only British territory occupied by Nazis

Guernsey is a hot spot for Second World War buffsIn Guernsey’s darkest hour, Canadians rushed to help. Today’s visitors to this lively, lovely Channel Island, just off the Normandy coast, can’t help but be reminded of that. The Channel Islands were the only British territory to suffer Nazi occupation during the Second World War. For German leader Adolf Hitler, the islands – which include…