Six million ……….. and a thank you

Today, the blog passed the six million mark.

It started in November 2011, with one blog story about my first book which was due out  at the beginning of the following year.

Since then there have been 7,540 stories, covering a great many topics from Chorlton-cum-Hardy in the 19th century to my part of south east London, the history of British Home Children, my love affair with Italy, and much more.

And here I must thank the many contributors who have written articles, submitted pictures, or just suggested topics, while offering up material, from photographs to diaries, memorabilia, and memories.

I won’t mention any of them by name, they know who they are, and how grateful I am for those contributions.

Added to which regular readers will also know who they are, and those new to the blog will find them listed in the stories and down the panel on the right hand side of the screen.

Now, numbers are not everything, and I don’t want anyone to assume this is a vain and boastful piece, rather a recognition, that one computer, and a group of interested people can produce stories about the past which have together been seen by six million and read on every continent except the one with the penguins.

So that is it. 

And to misquote Douglas Adams “Good night and thanks for all the interest”.*

Of course it could all fall flat tomorrow, but that like the Vogon destructor ships that demolished the Earth is just how it might be.

Location; everywhere

Pictures; Trafalgar Square, 1981,and Varese, 2016,  from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish, the fourth book of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams