I had a Richard III bookmark before it was cool

It's true, I did. My Dad, who is a staunch supporter of Richard and convinced of his innocence in the matter of the Prince's in the tower, bought it for me a few months ago. While I remain somewhat sceptical that Richard could be entirely innocent of the deaths of the two boys, I have always found him a fascinating King and was happy to see him staring pensively at me every time I opened my book.

Now however, in leicester, he is literally everywhere. Apart from the exhibit at the Cathedral and the statue that stands in castle gardens it seems that if you turn a corner in this city you will see good King Richard staring down at you. I even saw him advertising sunglasses in the city centre sporting a pair of natty Raybans and declaring 'deals fit for a King!
 
The discovery of England's last King to die in battle under a very unassuming car park in the centre of Leicester is undeniably fantastic and the kind of thing that if it cropped up in fiction you may be hard pressed to believe. Its a huge achievement for the University of Leicester and the Richard III society and a great thing for Leicester as a city (although all the modern city itself can really claim to have done is been built on top of him ...) and I completely understand making the most of what is an incredible historical discovery... But that's just it, it is an incredible historical discovery. The team who uncovered Richard's remains fought a long and arduous campaign to find the lost king, carrying the scepticism of the wider historical community and facing up to the fact that in all likelihood they wouldn't find him. This is history, our history, discovered in one of the most tangible ways history can be discovered ie. physical remains, under our very noses. The amount we can learn from Richard's remains is considerable, even just the confirmation that he did indeed have some kind of physical deformity, visible or not to me is massively exciting. (I fully accept that I'm a huge geek and not everybody will find RIII's curved spine quite so enthralling). Also the possibilities opened up by DNA research in historical study are clearly demonstrated.

And yet this actual historical discovery and its relevance for the field and for our understanding of the history of our country risks being lost against the rising tide of Richard III publicity gimmicks and the fact that people are just getting a bit sick of it! The continuing argument over where Richard Should ultimately be buried arguably isn't helping either. New History Lab is seeking to break through the hype and get to the history underneath. On Friday 22nd March Dr. Turi King who lead the genetic analysis which confirmed the identity of the skeleton will be discussing the search, the find, the role of DNA analysis and the implications for history. Come along and hear a first hand account of the discovery of a King in a car park, a truly incredible thing, and appreciate again how history literally unfolded on our doorstep here in Leicester.

History Graduated Education Programs Listing

The following link has been sent to us by the website PhDs.org and is a comprehensive and informative resource that systematically sorts out the available history graduate programs available today in the U.S.

http://graduate-school.phds.org/education-index

PhD = Problems hampering Deadlines?

Thesis-writing is a strange endeavour. You have one set deadline - if you're full-time, it is three years, or 1,095 days, after you start (we'll leave aside how set that deadline is, for the moment). As such, you face a different beast from undergraduate or taught post-graduate study. With those, constant deadlines enable you to keep on top of your workload, taking certain essays off your hands at regular intervals.

The thesis, on the other hand, stays with you. You and your superviser can set up deadlines for when each chapter has to be drafted, and this is an important part of maintaining a steady rhythm of writing, but, unlike other degrees, you carry on working on what is ultimately the same piece of work. You get those drafts back with feedback, and you can either continue honing that chapter, or move on to another. Either way, your one piece of work is still with you.

I write this now as I have a deadline tomorrow. I am supposed to be submitting one-third of chapter 6 and one-third of chapter 3. (These two sections are necessarily connected, although I won't bore you with the details now.) The trouble is that I spent all yesterday trying to work out a problem that threatened to undermine the entire thesis, especially how chapter 5 relates to the rest of the piece. And I couldn't just put it to one side and wait until I pick up chapter 5 again because it would affect how I was going to write these sections of 3 and 6.

This is the problem with doctoral study. Anxieties about fundamental problems can strike at any point - even three days before a deadline. And these problems might not be directly related to what you're working on at that particular moment. It might be how that section relates to another that you haven't considered yet. And you can only prepare so much for such an eventuality. Thesis-writing is such an intellectual exercise, that thoughts can strike when you least expect them. And overcoming these problems may just take time - time for your brain to process what exactly is to be done about it. Unfortunately, human brains are not always such respectors of deadlines.

Fortunately, armed only with a pad of paper, a pencil, and a brain, I worked out what was wrong, discounted what I thought was wrong but was actually ok, and re-established the boundaries of what I was actually trying to say. I lost a day's work though! It is not unusual for a major problem to strike at a time that undermines your attempts to meet a short deadline. The best way to deal with this is to be flexible about your deadlines, and try to reach an agreement with your superviser about such a situation. My superviser has always been understanding when I have needed an extension. But sometimes you just have to plough on. I haven't asked for more time in this case because I think I'm going to be ok, and it would be nice to finish these pieces before I go away for the weekend.

Is there a place for research ethics in pre-twentieth-century history?

In doing my PhD, I have read many disparate and versatile sources, from account books to letters and diaries. I recently starting reading the personal diary of the overseer of the poor John Turner from eighteenth-century Sussex. Instead of a formulaic piece that simply outlines his day-to-day job, I was surprised to find an extraordinarily candid and personal piece in which he talks about his feelings, worries and hopes. He discusses his problems with drink, his worries about making ends meet and his love life. He discusses the ups and downs of his marriage, including his doubts about being with his wife, and his stages of mourning when she died, including his loneliness and the worries and excitement of finding someone else. Throughout, I was frequently thinking to myself that I should not be reading this. Here was a piece which was incredibly private and something which he did for himself – to not be seen by anybody. It was a way for him to digest what he had done and a way for him to work out his plans, feelings and aspirations.

The foundation of modern research ethics is based on the idea that the subject has free choice in whether they participate, away from deception, coercion and the potential of emotional/physical distress. So what then, makes using such a private and personal document as an old diary for the pursuit of history ok?

Modern oral history has to go through rigorous ethical constraints to be approved and many modern documents are subject to informed consent and time restraints as to when they are released to the public. When we bear this in mind then, is it ethical for us to use diaries like Turner’s? Does the fact that he is dead and unable to provide consent exonerate us from this worry? The majority of modern people that keep a diary must cringe at the thought of others reading it, let alone it being published and made readily available in a library or at the click of a mouse. So how would somebody like Turner feel if he knew that people would be reading his diary and dissecting intricate and private details of his life?

Of course, the questions I pose are unanswerable and we can only speculate as to whether Turner would approve of his diary being used in the pursuit of historical knowledge. Equally, I am not advocating that all personal accounts which do not have consent be taken out of circulation. Sources like private diaries and letters enable the historian to see the past in a way beyond simple descriptions and facts. They allow us to see emotion and constantly remind us that what we are studying are people; that were once alive and living and breathing like us. But I nonetheless feel that some historians habitually forget this. We, as historians, must constantly remind ourselves of this fact and endeavour to treat each subject with respect and dignity. We need to see them as the product of their surroundings and not judge them too heavily on ideas that seem alien to us and emotions that we could never fully fathom. Ultimately, by doing this, despite not knowing if they approved of our use of their personal accounts, we will at the very least give the subject a fair and just appraisal which they might have understood, and will be able to use these fantastic personal testimonies to their full potential.

Suffragettes and the Tele

Hanging on an unassuming wall in the National Portrait Gallery, there is a painting of an elderly woman. The neutral brown background to this piece creates an air of calm and the lady’s eyes are calm and gaze out at the viewer. But don’t let the fur coat and peaceful expression fool you,  this is not a member of the aristocracy or a snapshot of some kind of missionary heading for retirement, but Emmeline Pankhurst, the militant Leader of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU). In a gallery filled with images of Britain’s military heroes fighting in battle and politicians standing in the cabinet office, this picture stands out because Pankhurst is not shown doing what she is renowned  for; campaign for the rights of women and we should be asking, why? Unlike these other figures, Pankhurst has not been immortalised in her heyday. Whilst the other paintings show young men and women, Pankhurst is depicted as old and unthreatening. This should lead us to question the extent to which the women’s suffrage movement has taken its placed in the establishment of British history. Are the suffragettes only welcome if they are no longer a threat?

A high profile example of how the debate surrounding the suffragettes is still going on can be taken from the BBC History Magazine. In an edition of the magazine published in 2007 Christopher Bearman took the contemporary notion of the terrorist and applied to the women that helped to win half of our population the vote. His article in which he stated that the WSPU were ‘case and point’ for his belief that a terrorist would never identify themselves as such received a swift and damning response from the renound feminist historian, June Purvis. Purvis she reminds us that Bearman’s comparisons between the WSPU and modern Islamic fundamentatlists were not only insensitive and inappropriate, but an example of poor historical research (Bearman’s only primary references were to the male dominated mainstream newspapers of the day). And so why was it published? I can’t help but wonder what pieces like this are doing for our perceptions of the WSPU and their standing as an important part of this nation’s history.

There have been a growing number of suffragettes appearing in contemporary entertainment. From the surge of suffragette heroines popping up in period dramas, for example Lady Sybil in the hugely successful Downton Abbey and naïve Valentine Wannop in the BBC’s new  World War One drama Parades End to the opening ceremony of the British Olympic Games, suffragettes appear to be an accepted and to a certain extent romanticised part of our history. The way in which these characters are portrayed as “suffragettes” , however, gives us an insight into the way in which we today wish to view our protesting predecessors.  1914 was the year of real fear, brought about by the relentless actions of militancy carried out by the WPSU (as well as other organisations) and yet Lady Sybil gets in trouble for taking part in a by-election campaign and Valentine backs away in fear as Mary “Slasher” Richardson gets to work in the National Gallery.

Neither of these women took part in the actions or events that made the suffragettes different from the other groups campaigning at the time. If we’re honest they’re pretty watered down versions, maybe to make our Sunday viewing a little easier. The Nation Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) were an organisation that would have waved placards and handed out leaflets. The WPSU bombed. They smashed windows, they spat at policemen, slashed paintings and threw themselves in front of horses. So not every member set fire to a post box, but what historian would deny that these militant acts were what made this group of campaigners separate from the rest of the movement. And yet these unladylike actions are at best ignored and at worse condemned and not accepted as part of the WSPU’s identity even today, over a century on.

Despite this, it’s not all bad. The issues facing upper class suffragettes are well summed up in the line given by Dame Maggie Smith’s character in Downton when she says “how can one expect to bow to their majesties in the summer when they have been arrested at a riot in May?” And if we’re honest even if Valentine wasn’t impressed, Mary Richardson appearing in such a popular programme is something those of us who want the suffragette spirit to live on should be pleased about. The suffragettes taking their place in the story of Britain’s history during the opening ceremony of this summer’s Olympic Games was a great moment that shouldn’t be undermined and who knows, recent demonstrations in London and the nearing of the centenary of partial women’s suffrage might provide some interesting viewing!

What price suffrage?

On 18 November 1872, exactly 140 years ago today, a US Deputy Marshal arrested a woman in Rochester, New York. Her crime? Casting a vote in the recent presidential election. Attempting to take a part in the governance of her nation. Hoping to have her voice heard.

Supporters of women's right to vote, both male and female, used various protesting tactics throughout the nineteenth century, from petitions to speeches and articles, and organisation-building to solitary door-to-door canvassing. In the late 1860s, the protests became more refined when mock ballot boxes were set up, sometimes in the same room as the official ballot. In Vineland, New Jersey, on 11 November 1868, 172 women voted in a mock election. And over the next four years, many American women attempted to vote, and the focus of our story was one of those women. Her name was Susan B. Anthony.

A tireless worker for women's rights in the nineteenth century, Anthony made the ultimate gesture of protest and casted her ballot regardless of the laws that forbade her. She was tried and convicted, although it could hardly be said to be a fair trial. Anthony was not allowed to testify in her own behalf, the judge (Justice Ward Hunt) directed the jury to find her guilty, and had even prepared his opinion before the trial had begun. The sentence was a $100 fine. "I shall never pay a dollar of your unjust penalty," she stated as the punishment was read out. Indeed, she never did. The US government never attempted to collect the fine and in 1874 Anthony petitioned Congress to wipe it out.

To think there was a time when people spent all their spare time and social (and financial*) capital on trying to take their place in the democratic system, whereas now fewer and fewer people seem willing to engage themselves, seems incredible. I hear it said that people don't feel engaged or included. These women weren't engaged or included. But rather than shy away, they fought back and engaged themselves. They taught themselves and each other, working together and sharing news and resources, and maintained their commitment to taking part in the governance of their nation. The stories of the suffragists (and their more radical cousins, the Suffragettes) seem just as relevant as ever.


*Anthony, a single working woman, got herself into $10,000 ($180,000 in modern money) of debt to pay for a women's rights newspaper, the Revolution.

Sorry, but who's memory lane am I strolling down??

One of the things I love about research is that sometimes, some concept or idea you're thinking about in connection with your thesis translates to something happening in your everyday life and makes you consider it differently. Thoughts sprout and connect and you reach conclusions that may previously have escaped you .... Whether they are in any way insightful or bare any relevance to your actual work is another matter.

At the moment I'm working on a paper I'm going to deliver at a conference next year. I've been reading and thinking about memory and nostalgia and the way they are constructed. Specifically I'm looking at media representations of the Women's Land Army and the way they affect our recollections of it. I've been thinking about the idea that within a cultural group there is always a dominant memory, always an accepted cultural discourse or version of events that is generally accepted and passed on. In the case of the WLA there is general fondness and pride in a group of women remembered to be selfless, hard working and eager to serve their country. Even those of us who are far too young to have actual memories of the WLA and are not related to anyone who served in it, if they have ever thought about it, would usually describe similar emotions and feelings about the WLA. This is not to suggest that the WLA isn't deserving of those sentiments by any means, but rather it got me thinking about the ways and reasons we accept memories, or perceived versions of events that aren't our own and even draw pleasure from them.

Two of my favourite programmes on TV recently have been 'Fresh Meat' and 'Mrs Brown's Boys' and part of their attraction for me have been the elements of familiarity and nostalgia that I draw from them. As far as I am aware whilst I was an under-graduate, neither I, nor any of my friends, slept with a lecturer, drove a housemate on a massive acid trip across the country to see a dying horse or drilled through a woman's cheek with a dental drill. However, when I watch Fresh Meat I am filled with a warm 'aaah uni' feeling.

Similarly, with Mrs. Brown's Boys, I have never experienced what its like to have an Irish 'Mammy' - my family is originally Irish but you have to go back a fair few generations to find any green blood in our veins. Neither my beautiful Mother or either of my wonderful Grandmothers get up to wild shenanigans or are nearly as foul mouthed - although they do come out with some cracking expressions - and I would imagine it is the same for the majority of the audience of that show.

None of the experiences portrayed in these two shows are my own and yet I relate to them as reflective and reminiscent of my own experience of family life and life as an under-graduate. Part of the appeal is obviously the farcical situations and exaggerated characters common to most comedies, however, for me there is more to it. Those on screen are not my memories or my feelings and yet I accept them almost as something similar and take greater enjoyment from them as a result. Of course there are elements that pretty much anyone could engage with whether the content of the shows bore any relevance to their actual life or not. However the secondary and I think deeper level of appeal of both programmes is the nostalgia factor - we look at the overblown caricatures and see traces or characteristics of people we know and so identify with them on a new level and almost accept them as a credible, if exaggerated, version of events.

There are exceptions to every rule and this case it is the exceptions that, prove the point. There will be people who find no relation with what they see on the screen, and declaim loudly that 'that's not what uni/family life is like!' however they are usually the minority - the fact that most people accept a version events that in all honesty cannot really relate that closely to their own experiences becomes more apparent in the light of those wont accept it. Is it just that we like to feel that our feelings and experiences are common ones and likely to be similar to those of other people? Is it that individual memory is never perfect and so we accept something vaguely similar to our own experiences even though it may not be entirely accurate? Is it that we like to construct narratives and order our life experiences in an effort to make sense of who we are and if those narratives are corroborated by others we feel more validated as a person? ..... I don't know. Thankfully I have until next March to get my thoughts in order before the conference and in the mean time, this is just an interesting thought cropping up from my research.

Manufacturing Pasts: Can Digital Resources Change History?

A post from Gill...

In response to Tom and Ben’s recent posts and ahead of Friday’s Lab on ‘Manufacturing Pasts’ I thought I’d add my tuppence worth to the digitisation debate!

And, for those of who like to be ahead of the game, here are the links to the growing number of excellent digital resources that will form the basis of Friday’s discussion and are currently available for local, industrial and environmental historical research: http://cdm16445.contentdm.oclc.org/; http://www2.le.ac.uk/library/manufacturingpasts
 
Also, and I may regret this, but this is a video I made with the expert help of Terese Bird, with the aim of creating a toolkit that will help students get to grips with the visual material in the digital archive. There is a long version: http://www2.le.ac.uk/library/manufacturingpasts/toolkit and a short version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03AO7HIMr5Y

As well as my PhD research, working on the ‘Manufacturing Pasts’ project has helped clarify a couple of issues for me, so this is what I’ve discovered over the last few months...

Trading Fragility for Ephemera

Digital archives do not replace physical archives. They create a new set of digital objects that simulate some of the qualities of the original. While these objects may appear more robust than the fragile document they simulate, they are at the same time more unstable because they are ephemeral; dependent on the specific combination of hardware and software that supports them.  Recognising the limitations of both digital and physical documents allows us to see the relationship between their respective archives more clearly. What is important here, is not to view the digital archive as an alternative to the physical archive, but as a means (to refer to Tom’s earlier blog and highway analogy) to more effectively change between lanes on the information superhighway. For example, if (as a researcher) you can do an initial search of the archive and get a sense of its contents before leaving your desk, you can make a shorter, more effective trip to the physical archive. This is good news for those travelling researchers like Ben, who can spend less time in lonely hotel rooms crying into their pot noodles ;) Or like Tom, you may have time to consider the more kooky elements of an archival collection that you wouldn’t have ‘wasted’ time with if you were on a tight 9-5 schedule. Of course different collections will maintain different dynamics between the digital and the physical, but the point is to use the digital to re-imagine what we know about our respective subjects, while maintaining awareness of how all archives construct historical memory.

The Floodgates?

Those who have been busy reviewing the success of digitisation projects have noted that thus far many more quantitative studies have been completed using digital archives, despite this not being the aspiration of those who initiated digitisation projects. It appears then, that researchers of the qualitative ilk have not yet taken up the digital challenge. Similarly, of the archivists I’ve talked to, the challenge of digitisation has not been a flood of users abusing material, but how to attract users to the site. It appears that we may need to build into digital collections some kind of interface between the digitisers and the users, just as we need archivist in the archive.

This leads me to the superb ‘Manufacturing Pasts’ project that is currently under development at the University of Leicester. The project has sought not only to make material available digitally, but also provide a set on Online Educational resources, or tools, that help researchers to find their way through the material.

Have we solved all the challenges of the digital? Well there is only way to find out...

... come and join us at New History Lab where well be discussing ‘Manufacturing Pasts: Can digital resources change History? Be there, or be seriously lacking in tea, cake and cutting-edge historical discussion!

We Found Ants in a Hopeless Place

Even in the short time I have been studying history, massive digitisation projects have completely revolutionised the way we research. From small university projects or huge efforts by national libraries, to massive companies like Google, it seems like everyone has a stake in making more original sources available to ever increasing numbers of people. Proponents of digitisation highlight the nuanced ways that great reams of data, and not just numbers but words as well, can be subjected to sophisticated qualitative and quantitative methods of analysis. Others see the capacity for the democratisation of knowledge - as professionals everywhere quietly quiver. Of course, there are the naysayers. Key-word searching of documents can find the specific but ignore the just-as-important general. Political and economic influences on what is chosen for digitisation can influence or skew research agendas. As a reflexive discipline(!), we are uploading with one hand and reloading to shoot it down with the other.

It's like the metaphor of the information superhighway. Tempting though it is, the fast lane often spells trouble. It's all there, it's all searchable, and I don't even need to leave my desk! But is this approach safe? What will you miss by speeding along as fast as you can? There's beautiful countryside on either side of you that's just as important as the final destination. Then there's the slow-lane, with a few lonely pootlers, refusing to go above 30 miles an hour. The highway is scary; it's too dangerous. I'll stick with what I know, use new technologies as little as possible, and get off at the next local-archive junction. Finally, and predictably, there is the middle lane. It will get you where you've got to go safely, give you time to take in more that is around you, and obviously be more interesting and efficient than sticking to the slow-lane.

Anyway. This last few weeks I have found myself on one of the biggest highways in the world: http://archive.org/ To call it colossal would be to do it an injustice. For someone who engages with American Studies from afar, like me, it is an especially useful tool. Functionable, varied, and comprehensive. Perhaps one of the joys of a depository like this is the ability to use a simple search term and bask in the esoteric sunshine of the random result. Lately I have been going through some research on 'civics'; a type of educational movement that (arguably) emerged in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in both Britain and the US (and probably elsewhere too!), it took its aim as creating good citizens. Much of it is, to be blunt, pretty damn dry. Detailed descriptions of government machinery, national legislation, historical development, and civic responsibility. There are literally hundreds of civics books on archive.org that fit this mould. Then I stumbled upon Ant communities and how they are governed; a study in natural civics (1909).  Henry McCook, a clearly kooky entomologist, tries to find parallels in the ant world of the way humans live together: ant citizenship. Beautifully illustrated, it is also methodical and interesting. It's probably useless in the argument I am trying to build, but it's enjoyably useless all the same.

So sometimes when you're travelling down the highway, concentrating mostly on reaching your destination, it can be worth stopping off for a quick restorative drink and a feast on something more unknown. Just make sure to watch out for ants...


Disclaimer: I don't drive, so don't take anything I say about highways, information or otherwise, seriously.

Archival Survival

In the last twelve months, as part of my PhD and its associated project, I’ve visited twelve archives and spent (I think) a total of 48 full days in them, as I try to do a 9-5 when I’m there. It would’ve been more if Glamorgan Archives had a more efficient response system, but as it is, Cardiff will have to wait. This struck me as a lot, especially travel wise, at just short of ten working weeks, (though I could be hanging around with the wrong PhD students) so I thought I’d start the new year on the blog with a post about how I’ve found it. My trips, because of the project I’m based on and the thesis that comes out of it, have taken me almost exclusively to Wales and the Welsh borders and incorporate a lot of hotel stays. Initially I liked this but the novelty wore off fairly quickly. A stay might last for 3 or 4 nights in a new place during which the only person you’re likely to talk to is the archivist. In addition to this there’s the lack of homeliness of swapping hotel rooms each week, and the constant diet of takeaways and cooked breakfasts. On my nights I tend to investigate the local Chinese options, or employ the room’s kettle on pot noodle making if I’m feeling stingy. The option of something fresh like a Tropicana with your umpteenth McDonalds becomes a godsend.

 

Academics tend to hold a dim view of archivists (one richly once told me he thought they were all folded away and kept there overnight) and I imagine the feeling’s probably mutual. In my mind it’s worth being nice to them, they can be your best friend or your worst enemy. I’ve heard of academics having fall outs with archivists so bad that they can’t comfortably revisit the archives. On the other hand I’ve heard of academics carefully arguing their way through with technicalities or financial incentives from large funding grants (offers to pay for the conservation of fragile documents for instance), though there are probably quite a few less successful stories, told less often. I’m yet to find an instance where I haven’t been able to negotiate to see an original document, after initially being pointed in the direction of some form of inadequate copy. I tend to find they’re all eager to help if you explain what it is you’re interested in, though the enthusiasm may not match the results. Be prepared to put up with inaccurate information about your own thesis topic, and childlike explanations on how an archive works.

 

My award for favourite archivists goes to the friendly girls at Powys, though this dynamic was helped by their close proximity in the small archives, and the high archivist to researcher ratio (‘it’s busy today’, said one as she rearranged the tables on the arrival of another visitor, taking the number there to four). The man in charge of conservation at Shrewsbury turned out to be the tyrant I’d been warned about, but the archivists more than won me over, staying for an extra ten minutes to allow me to finish as I fought a rechargeable battle with a dying camera battery. The detailed catalogues available at Somerset were most admirable, followed closely by those of Gloucestershire. The Welsh archives are much less organised on this front, as I’m finding with Glamorgan. I’d have to credit Somerset as my favourite modern facility, and the housing of the records office in the old town gaol in Ruthin Denbighshire was really quite impressive. Doncaster council would do well to give a lick of paint to the old school that houses their archives, where I’m informed, quite believably, that they have to put the buckets out when it rains.

 

I don’t think I’m alone in my pet hate of extreme archive enthusiasts, who crop up everywhere, striding around the room with a spectacular sense of self importance. They’re incredibly good at creating noise without really saying anything, clearing their throats, laughing, or muttering ‘wow’ to themselves. When they do this, don’t look at them, because when you do, they’ll not be looking at their document, they’ll be looking at you, just waiting to give you all the gripping details about Great Aunt Nessie’s haberdashery passion, finishing with the fallacy of, ‘isn’t that interesting?’. Of course these people form a chunk of those who keep the archives alive, and we should never begrudge their love of history.

 

Overall I really like what I do, and that’s partly because of where this research takes me. Shrewsbury was nice, as was Chester just before Christmas, and why else would I go to the Welsh valley town of Ebbw Vale? I liked the curiosity of a more remote Welsh town, remarking to the hotel receptionist on my departure that it was a nice place, where everyone appeared to know each other, and received the beaming response of ‘yeah, and most of them are probably related..’. I spent a fair bit of the summer in Taunton, as Somerset took me ages. I enjoyed sitting downstairs in the inn I was staying in a lovely little village at nights, soaking up the atmosphere of a place where everyone seemed to look out for each other, then going out one morning to discover some clot had negotiated the minute country laness, only to get to the car park and drive into the side of my car. It was also in Somerset where my keenness for the archives got me locked inside one night, coming out the toilets at the end of the day thinking, ‘bit dark in here’. After discovering how to work the phone on reception (I had no signal), a rescue was mounted from Taunton Library. In my defence no one had checked the sign out sheet.