I came late to writing, and even now I regard myself as a jobbing historian, writing to order or to whatever takes my fancy.
There will never be any great earth shattering manuscript which offers up an explanation to life, love, and the universe and if I could I guess the answer to it all would just be 42.*
For over 35 years I did write material for students seeking to make sense of everything from the English Civil War to the Holocaust, but it was all in house stuff and vanished like snow in the winter sun.
Now I write for pleasure along with the odd commission and the pleasure comes from uncovering the lives of the little people who lived out their lives in the shadow of great events.
Often those lives passed by unremarked and unrecorded and apart from handful of official documents their lives are encompassed by a comment on a picture postcard, an obituary or in the fading memory of an ageing grandchild.
And to the question of why do it, the answer is because I can.
Over a decade and half I have wandered over the various ways a person’s life is recorded, know how to cut a few corners and put the threads together in a story.
Most of those I write about will never even be a footnote but their lives are worthy of inspection, not I hasten to add in a voyeuristic way but in that genuine search for a bit of truth.
Along the way I make connections, discover how those connections add to the bigger picture and sometimes help a relative come to know a little bit more about their family.
Does it pay? No. Is it worthwhile? Yes.
And that I think is enough.
Well that, and the sheer excitement of taking on a new piece of research, unsure of where it will lead and then faced with that blank screen and the excercise in making something come alive, and deliver it in just 500 words.
Picture; Young Clara, date unknown in the uniform of the East Lancs from the collection of David Harrop and a family group, date unknown from the collection of Ron Stubley
*Life, the Universe and Everything, although I now discover that number the 42 has indeed been regarded as special by everyone from Lewis Carroll to the Japanese and even the Babylonians.
 |
| Young Clara, date unknown |
For over 35 years I did write material for students seeking to make sense of everything from the English Civil War to the Holocaust, but it was all in house stuff and vanished like snow in the winter sun.
Now I write for pleasure along with the odd commission and the pleasure comes from uncovering the lives of the little people who lived out their lives in the shadow of great events.
Often those lives passed by unremarked and unrecorded and apart from handful of official documents their lives are encompassed by a comment on a picture postcard, an obituary or in the fading memory of an ageing grandchild.
And to the question of why do it, the answer is because I can.
Over a decade and half I have wandered over the various ways a person’s life is recorded, know how to cut a few corners and put the threads together in a story.
 |
| The family, date unknown |
Along the way I make connections, discover how those connections add to the bigger picture and sometimes help a relative come to know a little bit more about their family.
Does it pay? No. Is it worthwhile? Yes.
And that I think is enough.
Well that, and the sheer excitement of taking on a new piece of research, unsure of where it will lead and then faced with that blank screen and the excercise in making something come alive, and deliver it in just 500 words.
Picture; Young Clara, date unknown in the uniform of the East Lancs from the collection of David Harrop and a family group, date unknown from the collection of Ron Stubley
*Life, the Universe and Everything, although I now discover that number the 42 has indeed been regarded as special by everyone from Lewis Carroll to the Japanese and even the Babylonians.
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