It amazes me that more is not being made of the Centenary of the First World War in relation to the world we are living in today. On 23rd June the UK is voting on a referendum on whether to stay in the European Union. 8 days later will be the ceremonies to commemorate the Centenary of the disastrous first day of the Battle of the Somme. When they were growing up, none of the participants in that battle can have imagined the horrors they would have to face, and after the War ended many imagined that no-one would choose the possibility of facing them again. But as has been shown time and again, human memory is often short and one-eyed, and we are not immune to catastrophe. It seems impossible as I look out of my window at the blue sky of a sunny day that anything bad can ever happen but that is no reason for complacency.
2016 is different in so many ways to 1916, but there are a lot of similarities. There are people for whom life is all about the pursuit of material gain. There are people who believe they are better than other people for all sorts of abstract reasons (where they were born, where they went to school, what their religion is). There are big organisations who have lost sight of individual human needs. There are large amounts of the media more interested in spectacle than progress. There are people who think that the solution to problems is separation and/or violence. And there are people who don't think.
The human problems don't go away and particularly not when we focus on the differences between us rather than the fundamental truths we have in common. We all arrive in the miracle of birth, we all live in a world of much unexplained mystery, and we all die (for the truth of that, see the list of memorials I've just put up for each man in my group photograph - see www.groupphoto.co.uk/background). That's what a lot of those who met up in the Christmas Truce saw when they met up in No Man's Land - not just someone classified as "the enemy" but people like them trying to survive in a world beyond their control.
So what to do in this world where so often it seems we are presented with Hobson's choice, a rock or a hard place, a frying pan or a fire, a Trump or a Clinton, an EU or a Brexit? As my fount of paternal wisdom says "We live in an imperfect world". In the end, you have to pick the option with the least lunatics - and there is a lot to be said for trying to bring about change from within an organisation. Believe me, I know from my own experience that it's awfully hard to get anywhere if you're on the outside. But oh, the waste. All this money and time and effort being spent on arguing. The phrase "fiddling whilst Rome burns" comes to mind. The biggest problem we face is how to share this world of limited resources when population continues to expand and use those resources. The current economic model is based on continuous expansion and consumption. Given that the World is finite, at some point that is going to break down. So if the big organisations aren't committed to addressing this problem, what can we as individuals do?
Well, something one can learn from the First World War is that Route One frontal assault on entrenched positions tends to be costly for everyone involved. Fighting against big organisations and focusing on what is wrong is a recipe for despair. I know I spend a lot of time in angry frustration. And that doesn't get anyone anywhere. So, it is time to think laterally. Most people in the Western world have more choice now than ever before, and yet we often don't exercise that choice - and there is so much we can do that shows we care, whether it be on a small or a large scale.
In my project I was inspired by the life of Donald Stileman and the tale of "The Man Who Planted Trees" - it is in my book and you can read it in the book extract on my website. His epitaph was "Greatly Loved - Man of the Trees". The beauty of the Internet is that I have discovered the story of a man who also served and was wounded three times in the First World War and then went on to found an organisation that has since led to the planting of an estimated 26 billion trees worldwide. His name was Richard St. Barbe Baker and the organisation he founded in 1922 was called 'Men of the Trees'. That organisation has since become the International Tree Foundation and not only do they plant trees but they are dedicated to finding ways of those trees supporting the communities in which they are planted, providing a balance of environmental and economic benefit. My talents do not lie in horticulture (as anyone who has seen my garden will attest) but I can earn money from what I do and I have decided that this is the cause I will support. In addition to donating the fee the Daily Mail paid me for my part in their article, I will donate 10% of the profits from my books. And I say "books" because I have started work on my next book telling of the experience of doing this project - of how I went from an unemployed Chemistry & Computer Science graduate to having an Art & History exhibition in a major museum.
I've recently been feeling rather bogged down in the re-telling of the First World War. It feels good to have a purpose other than reminding people of the awfulness.
'A Group Photograph - Before, Now & In-Between' - News & Thoughts
Sunday, 8 May 2016
Monday, 18 April 2016
Upcoming events
- I'm at Dauntsey's School in Devizes this Tuesday evening, 19th April: see www.dauntseys.org/news/mercers-lecture-by-andrew-tatham for details.
- I've had confirmation that I'm giving a presentation at the Chalke Valley History Festival, and am honoured to be speaking at 2 p.m. on 1st July - the Centenary day of the opening of the Battle of the Somme.
- I have been booked to give a full presentation at the Appledore Book Festival on 1st October on the day that their patron Jeremy Vine will be visiting.
I'm planning to build tours of presentations around these last 2 events.
The WDYTYA? experience - and onwards
Well, I was pretty dead by the end of Who Do You Think You Are? Live - things were really full-on for 5 days and this last week has been about recovery and processing all that happened, some of which was difficult to handle. I know it's traditional these days to be relentlessly upbeat in these sorts of communications but I feel the need for a bit of honesty - there were positives (and I will come on to them) but it was also the case that certain issues I've had to deal with throughout my project have reared their heads and I feel that maybe talking about them will lead to someone getting back to me with an idea to sort them out.
Firstly I have to say Thank Goodness that Jacob was there along with me - not only for all the work he did, but also for the laughter that got us both through it. On Tuesday we picked up the van in Norwich then went to Ipswich to pick up a load of my books before heading off to our hotel in a quiet village just 10 minutes this side of the NEC. Trial One was going out to the hotel carpark on the Wednesday morning and discovering that one of the van's rear tyres was completely flat - we were then faced with the sort of Command Task which I have rarely been faced with since I stopped doing things with the Army - Ford have been very cunning in their space-saving and security-conscious stowage of spare wheel and tools and it took a couple of phone calls to the van office plus a lot of rolling around on the tarmac and much sweating to get everything swapped over and ready to go. We were exhausted before we'd even started (and at the end of the day I had to pay £114 for a new tyre given that a substantial nail had put paid to the old one).
We spent the rest of the day unloading and setting up the stand. I had a rough idea of the lay-out beforehand but had to think on the hoof to make adjustments given the actual practicalities that we were faced with - getting the power socket moved so that the cable didn't cross over where I was projecting onto and rigging up some kind of ceiling to stop odd shadows criss-crossing my projections on the back wall of the stand. With a few signs I printed out overnight, this is what we ended up with for the opening on Thursday morning:
It wasn't the most professional-looking stand, but there was a title board running around the outside of the stand to identify us, there were pages from the book on display left and right where people could read them if they wanted to have a look without committing to talking to anyone, and I thought the projections were different enough to arouse curiosity (one projection zoomed in and panned around the faces of the men in the group photograph and gave their names, and another scrolled through the panorama of all the tree drawings). I also knew that the 8-page feature was coming out in WDYTYA? magazine and I thought that would also lead people to want to seek us out.
One of my earliest visitors was a prominent genealogist who I'd met at one of my previous presentations. I thought we'd got on OK before so I was surprised to hear,“Oh, I see you’ve got your nice little book with
you” (whilst making no effort to actually have a look at it) and “I see
you’re showing your funny trees – it’ll be interesting to see what people make
of them”. I'm not quite sure what to make of that except that I have a feeling I'm not doing genealogy the proper way. It wasn't a great start but we were soon getting stuck into enticing people by smiles and hellos onto our stand - and that's when the hard work really began. OK, there were people who knew about me (including some who'd already bought my book and wanted to meet me and shake my hand), but there were a lot of people for whom it was all new and the most common thing we were asked, usually in mid-sentence as we were introducing the book, was "so what unit was this?" - and it was a constant effort to try and shift people from the idea that this was a standard history book about a specific unit. OK, the specific stories of these men and the 8th Royal Berkshires are important but for me this project has always been about taking those specific stories and turning them into something universal - looking at the long-term effects of the War on all of us, exploring what it means to be a human being, our place in history and our place in memory, and what we can learn from the past to make the future better. And I just haven't found a way of getting that instantly across before a lot of people have already made up their minds that this is standard military/family history - so some people don't bother really looking at the book, or don't come to my presentations - and often those people who do read or do come are surprised by what they find.
At the other end of the spectrum, when a lot of people see my animated film or my tree drawings without any introduction, it's not what they're used to and they can switch off without engaging with it. In the exhibition in Ypres, there were films in the different sections which introduced the new concepts (well done to Piet & Klaus & Manu for working out these films were the way to do it - they really held the whole exhibition together and made it work) - but on my stand at the NEC I couldn't show these (not only would the sound have interfered with what was going on on stands around me, but I would have needed a theatrical licence to show them). So it was a case of Jacob or I explaining things to everyone who came to the stand - and boy is that tiring - but given that I was not given a slot to give any sort of presentation, that was the way it seemed it had to be.
It was only really at the beginning and end of each day that we had significant quiet periods with no visitors, and in between there was a fairly constant and varied stream. There were some exceptionally rude people we had to deal with. One man cut me off to tell me that despite what I was saying actually my book was of very narrow interest (and this after he had only just set eyes on the cover) and when I asked him whether he thought Jeremy Vine would have so wholeheartedly recommended it if it was of such limited appeal, his mouth twitched as if he'd just chewed on a very bitter lemon (with perhaps an electrode and a wasp in it) and he flounced off without another word. A woman came onto our stand and both Jacob & I thought her shouted query was for where the "death stand" was - Jacob replied that he'd seen Deceased Online (a website with searchable cemetery registers) just around the corner and started to point her towards it when she shouted even louder "NO, THE DEAF STAND!" - and then stormed off still shouting, leaving her husband to chat apologetically with us even to the extent of making vague suggestions he might buy a book. We later found the stand for the British Deaf History Society nearby - sadly the British Rude Society has had to close due to customer service failures.
There were also a lot of people who were completely fixated on their own stories and their own research - some were very nice and had interesting stories to tell or showed me old photos which I'm always a sucker for and did my best to spot clues in, but some were just looking for an ear to bend and launched into a monologue that no doubt I didn't end up being the only audience for at the NEC. It reminded me of certain times working in the library. With all that said, I'm incredibly grateful that it was all leavened by some lovely conversations with interesting and interested people who had come to the NEC with open and enquiring minds. My great support from Family Tree magazine continued (see https://www.facebook.com/familytreemaguk/videos/10154100883309464/ for yet more promotional work they've done for me (I seemed to have improved at doing pieces to camera since the time I made the films with Klaus & Didier last year)). I also had good chats with folk from WDYTYA? magazine, the Imperial War Museum (including someone who was at university with a great-great nephew of Cyril Thorne from my group photograph), the Surrey History Centre, the Western Front Association, & the Ordnance Survey (whose representative was familiar with Donald Stileman's grandson who also works for them). I also enjoyed visits from members of the families of Alf Dobson, Douglas Tosetti, Henry Hewitt, & David Glen (the latter including 2 young ladies who volunteered to put their John Lewis experience of 35 years previously to use on my stand). Another visitor was David Allen Lambert who was over from the States and who obviously really made an effort to check out everything on display, including interviewing me for his show on Extreme Genes, a family history radio show that has tens of thousands of listeners.
One thing I observed about WDYTYA? Live was that most of the focus was on how to do the research or giving historical context to our families' stories, but there was very little that I could see that was about presenting what was found in new ways. My favourite memories of the show are of talking through my family tree drawings with interested listeners and almost seeing the lightbulb come on in their eyes as they got the concept and saw what I was trying to show with all the variety of human life and the magic that can grow from it - and hearing one man say that it was the best thing he'd seen at the show. I hope I can hold onto that because in material terms the exhibition was not a success for me - we managed to sell 56 books over the 3 days and overall I made a loss of over £500 (expenses included printing costs of the books, electricity & furniture hire for the stand, van hire & fuel & a new tyre, hotel & meals, pay for Jacob, and that's not including a credit card reader and paper bags & other stationery that I bought and which I now have for future events) - and that was with being given the stand for free - the fees for that stand would normally be nearly £4000 and that is something unaffordable for a miniature businessman like me.
So, what next? Well, having prepared very well, I now have thousands of books available for sale but all my recent "big" bits of publicity have not had a particularly dramatic impact and so I am left having to pay for their storage. I remain eternally grateful to Jeremy Vine who got the ball properly rolling and everything in terms of book sales has built from that. I'm still selling a few every day, and in fact there has been only one day since 8th December when I haven't sold a book. I'm still regularly receiving lovely emails from grateful buyers of the book, and all 17 Amazon reviews are 5 stars. The next things I need to do are:
- target bookshops and widen the distribution of my book
- organise presentations and get out on the road (news coming soon on that)
- find a UK venue for my exhibition.
Any ideas on how to break down the barriers and get potential venues to pay attention to what my exhibition is really about in terms of style and content will be gratefully received.
Monday, 4 April 2016
Events tickets
A couple of things coming up for which I have just got ticketing information:
- I have 7 complimentary day tickets left (normally £22 each) for the Who Do You Think You Are? Live Exhibition that is on at the NEC in Birmingham from 7th to 9th April (i.e. this Thursday to Saturday). If you would like any please email me today (Monday 4th April) on andrew@groupphoto.co.uk and I will post them out 1st class on a first-come-first-served basis.
- I am giving a presentation at Dauntsey's School www.dauntseys.org at 7.30 p.m. on 19th April - seats are free but please let them know if you are coming by email reception@dauntseys.org or telephone 01380 814500
Thursday, 31 March 2016
Next!: Who Do You Think You Are?
I'm not going to dwell on the Daily Mail article, but I think it was neatly summed up by one of the comments online which ran something like "well, now I've read all that, I don't need to buy the book". I've had some reaction but it was more of a ripple than a tidal wave. And that is what I expected when I saw the article on Saturday morning and realised that their definition of a "snippet" about each man was slightly different from mine, and that there was nothing to entice people to look further, that this was part of a bigger project, that the book was full of so much more, of pictures and letters and poetry, and that the feature writer had told me it was the best book she'd ever read.
One doesn't get many shots at national publicity so it was a bit frustrating, but I'm reminded of what happened when I took part in Open Studios in 2006. I went to a huge amount of effort, getting marquees, having display boards built, printing up and framing loads of work, setting up my shed cinema, painting signs & putting them on all the roads leading to me, booking a band for the opening party - but a combination of appalling weather (which led to the band only just being able to play with freezing hands, and then one of the marquees taking off and nearly performing a loop-the-loop, luckily after all the artwork had been removed and re-displayed inside my tiny house) and poor publicity from the central Open Studios organisers meant that I had hardly any visitors who weren't already familiar with my work and virtually zero sales. But, and it's a very big 'BUT', that Open Studios was vital on the path that led to where I am now with my Group Photograph project. Not only did one of my visitors to my shed cinema become an enthusiast who is still sending me encouraging emails 10 years later, but another booked me to give a presentation in my village, which led to a presentation in a library, which led to all the other presentations I've given. I had had a long lay-off from my project and not only did this re-awaken my interest but I also saw that what I had done actually meant something to other people, that it wasn't just my magnificent solitary obsession. One has hopes and plans, and though those hopes and plans may appear to be dashed, one just never knows what hopes and plans the world has got for you. The important thing is to keep getting out there, making what you do visible and then things happen, often in ways you could not imagine.
And it's been easier to write that because my next hopes and plans are already in motion. Next week from Thursday 7th to Saturday 9th April, I'm at the NEC in Birmingham for Who Do You Think You Are? Live 2016, the biggest family history exhibition in the World. It's all rather happened at the last minute, but I've been given Stand 332 and in the last week I've booked the electric hook-up and furniture and a van to take a load of books and am currently making checklists of things I need to take. I've also had the great good fortune to find a friend to accompany me who has experience of being on a stand at the NEC and who is able to run the whole thing with me, along with some other kind helpers who I've heard from today. On a 4 metre x 5 metre stand I'm not going to be able show much from the Ypres exhibition, but I have set up some projections to throw onto the back wall and am looking forward to talking to people about various aspects of my project. And the big news is that Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine are running an 8-page spread about my project and I think it might even be going on the cover - and it's coming out to coincide with the opening of the exhibition at the NEC. It's all very exciting and I can't wait to get going with it.
One doesn't get many shots at national publicity so it was a bit frustrating, but I'm reminded of what happened when I took part in Open Studios in 2006. I went to a huge amount of effort, getting marquees, having display boards built, printing up and framing loads of work, setting up my shed cinema, painting signs & putting them on all the roads leading to me, booking a band for the opening party - but a combination of appalling weather (which led to the band only just being able to play with freezing hands, and then one of the marquees taking off and nearly performing a loop-the-loop, luckily after all the artwork had been removed and re-displayed inside my tiny house) and poor publicity from the central Open Studios organisers meant that I had hardly any visitors who weren't already familiar with my work and virtually zero sales. But, and it's a very big 'BUT', that Open Studios was vital on the path that led to where I am now with my Group Photograph project. Not only did one of my visitors to my shed cinema become an enthusiast who is still sending me encouraging emails 10 years later, but another booked me to give a presentation in my village, which led to a presentation in a library, which led to all the other presentations I've given. I had had a long lay-off from my project and not only did this re-awaken my interest but I also saw that what I had done actually meant something to other people, that it wasn't just my magnificent solitary obsession. One has hopes and plans, and though those hopes and plans may appear to be dashed, one just never knows what hopes and plans the world has got for you. The important thing is to keep getting out there, making what you do visible and then things happen, often in ways you could not imagine.
And it's been easier to write that because my next hopes and plans are already in motion. Next week from Thursday 7th to Saturday 9th April, I'm at the NEC in Birmingham for Who Do You Think You Are? Live 2016, the biggest family history exhibition in the World. It's all rather happened at the last minute, but I've been given Stand 332 and in the last week I've booked the electric hook-up and furniture and a van to take a load of books and am currently making checklists of things I need to take. I've also had the great good fortune to find a friend to accompany me who has experience of being on a stand at the NEC and who is able to run the whole thing with me, along with some other kind helpers who I've heard from today. On a 4 metre x 5 metre stand I'm not going to be able show much from the Ypres exhibition, but I have set up some projections to throw onto the back wall and am looking forward to talking to people about various aspects of my project. And the big news is that Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine are running an 8-page spread about my project and I think it might even be going on the cover - and it's coming out to coincide with the opening of the exhibition at the NEC. It's all very exciting and I can't wait to get going with it.
Saturday, 26 March 2016
The waiting is over
The promised feature in the Daily Mail has appeared today: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3510008/Heroes-gates-hell-s-haunting-picture-proud-British-regiment-pose-sunshine-1915-Weeks-later-one-three-named-dead-colonel-s-great-grandson-pieced-inspiring-stories.html - it looks like I'm not going to be in for a quiet Easter! At least I'm better prepared than when I went on the Jeremy Vine Show - there are books in stock and a bulk fulfilment plan to send out any orders this week.More later...
Thursday, 10 March 2016
A cunning plan (among many)
Firstly, apologies to those people who specially bought the Daily Mail last Saturday based on my last blog post only to find no mention of 'A Group Photograph'. I am learning about the fluidity of the newspaper business. Here is what happened. On Friday morning I heard from the feature writer Amanda that she hadn't heard back from her boss as to whether it was going in. At midday I set off to drive the 190 miles down to Sussex to give a presentation (of which more later). Thinking that I needed to be next to my computer early on Saturday in order to be able to react to what was happening from the gazillions of people reading about my project, I left to drive back up to Norfolk immediately after packing up my presentation kit. At 10 p.m. Amanda texted me to say that she still hadn't heard anything (which maybe meant her boss was away for the day) and would be looking online in the morning. At somewhere around midnight I pulled into the salubrious environs of Bishops Stortford services to have a nap and eventually made it home at 2.30 a.m..
Waking at 8 a.m. I soon discovered that there was no trace of my project on the Mail website, and was glad to be able to re-enter dreamland and end up somewhat fresher by the time I arrived at the memorial service that afternoon for Donald Stileman's daughter Elizabeth. The church was full with so many people whose lives had been touched by Elizabeth, and that her husband and children were all able to speak so movingly and joyfully of her was a testament to their love for her and the strength of her faith. It was great to see so many members of the family again in the Village Hall afterwards, even if I was the butt of some good-natured ribbing about all their purchases of the Daily Mail that morning. And so I have come to realise that I have been the unwitting agent of the Daily Mail's cunning plan to increase their circulation (!). I have since heard from Amanda and she has advised me that she will eat her hat if they don't run my feature at some point - they have again told her that they really love it, but given that it is not attached to a particular date, it is just the case that it gets bumped out when something of more time relevance comes in. Last Saturday, there was a feature on the 20th anniversary of the Dunblane school massacre and I can understand why they wouldn't want to include another piece that was also about a terrible event and how it effected the families of both the victims and the survivors.
On Monday, I headed back in to BBC Radio Norfolk in Norwich, this time to be interviewed by Paul Ross for BBC Radio Berkshire. The tiny broom-cupboard of a studio on the ground floor that I'd been in for the Jeremy Vine interview had been taken over by Farming Today so I actually found myself promoted to a huge studio upstairs, surrounded by screens and buttons which I did my very best not to touch. I was taken aback by Paul's introduction in which he made it clear just how much my book meant to him, including saying, "One of the most moving books I think I've ever held in my hands" and "I can only think of half a dozen books that have actually reduced me to tears, and this book is one of them". It was also apparent from the specific nature of his questions (many of which I had never been asked before) that he had really looked at the book in detail. You can listen to the whole interview at http://extra.groupphoto.co.uk/andrew-tatham-paul-ross-interview-7mar16.mpg.
I've had a good turn-out at my recent presentations in Mickleham, Jarrolds in Norwich, and in Firle, with several people driving long distances to come and see me, and I was delighted to see members of the families of Louis Klemantaski, Thomas Lawrence, Cyril Spartali, & David Glen, some of whom I'd never met before and some who I'd no idea were coming and whose presence was a wonderful surprise (including 2 very very recent additions to Cyril Spartali's family tree who I'm sure were doing some kind of call-and-response with the babies' cries in my animated film). I've now got further details about exhibitions/festivals I'm going to be involved in as follows:
Now that I know that I won't have to do any large-scale exhibition building this year, that gives me a lot more leeway with respect to organising tours of presentations as requested by 50 people so far, and I will be looking at how to programme that very soon (as well as organising some form of holiday - it's been a full-on couple of years!).
And finally, two last bits of news. Firstly, Findmypast are running a competition to win a copy of my book which they started today along with posting a guest blog from me: see https://www.facebook.com/findmypast/ &
https://blog.findmypast.co.uk/i-traced-all-46-of-the-men-in-a-wwi-ancestor-1651543748.html, so yes, you lucky people have got two huge bits ofwaffle elegant prose from me in one day.
And secondly, my favourite comment of recent times has come courtesy of a friend who's a teacher in a girls' school: "Everyone loves the book and I have to lock the Library copy up when I am not there to prevent it from disappearing. The only other book that has this distinction is a glossy one about the filming of Poldark." !!
Waking at 8 a.m. I soon discovered that there was no trace of my project on the Mail website, and was glad to be able to re-enter dreamland and end up somewhat fresher by the time I arrived at the memorial service that afternoon for Donald Stileman's daughter Elizabeth. The church was full with so many people whose lives had been touched by Elizabeth, and that her husband and children were all able to speak so movingly and joyfully of her was a testament to their love for her and the strength of her faith. It was great to see so many members of the family again in the Village Hall afterwards, even if I was the butt of some good-natured ribbing about all their purchases of the Daily Mail that morning. And so I have come to realise that I have been the unwitting agent of the Daily Mail's cunning plan to increase their circulation (!). I have since heard from Amanda and she has advised me that she will eat her hat if they don't run my feature at some point - they have again told her that they really love it, but given that it is not attached to a particular date, it is just the case that it gets bumped out when something of more time relevance comes in. Last Saturday, there was a feature on the 20th anniversary of the Dunblane school massacre and I can understand why they wouldn't want to include another piece that was also about a terrible event and how it effected the families of both the victims and the survivors.
On Monday, I headed back in to BBC Radio Norfolk in Norwich, this time to be interviewed by Paul Ross for BBC Radio Berkshire. The tiny broom-cupboard of a studio on the ground floor that I'd been in for the Jeremy Vine interview had been taken over by Farming Today so I actually found myself promoted to a huge studio upstairs, surrounded by screens and buttons which I did my very best not to touch. I was taken aback by Paul's introduction in which he made it clear just how much my book meant to him, including saying, "One of the most moving books I think I've ever held in my hands" and "I can only think of half a dozen books that have actually reduced me to tears, and this book is one of them". It was also apparent from the specific nature of his questions (many of which I had never been asked before) that he had really looked at the book in detail. You can listen to the whole interview at http://extra.groupphoto.co.uk/andrew-tatham-paul-ross-interview-7mar16.mpg.
I've had a good turn-out at my recent presentations in Mickleham, Jarrolds in Norwich, and in Firle, with several people driving long distances to come and see me, and I was delighted to see members of the families of Louis Klemantaski, Thomas Lawrence, Cyril Spartali, & David Glen, some of whom I'd never met before and some who I'd no idea were coming and whose presence was a wonderful surprise (including 2 very very recent additions to Cyril Spartali's family tree who I'm sure were doing some kind of call-and-response with the babies' cries in my animated film). I've now got further details about exhibitions/festivals I'm going to be involved in as follows:
- Who Do You Think You Are? Live at the NEC in Birmingham have given me stand 332 for all 3 days: 7th, 8th & 9th April, to coincide with a major feature that is coming out in the next issue of Who Do You Think You Are? magazine. The exhibition organisers are different from the people organising the speakers for the presentations and with the latter not being aware of my involvement, I will not be giving a presentation, but I will be making some projections to display on my stand, and of course will be available to chat about my project and research.
- Chalke Valley History Festival (at the end of June) haven't got a sponsor for a light-fast tent this year so I won't be able to do any projections, and quite honestly it's very difficult to scale down other aspects of my exhibition, particularly for an outdoor site, so I'm not going to be exhibiting there this year. I'm still hoping to give a presentation, but their standard slot is an hour so I won't be showing my animated film as I usually do.
- Appledore Book Festival (patron: Jeremy Vine) (late September, early October) have invited me to give a full presentation and will be getting back to me with a date.
And finally, two last bits of news. Firstly, Findmypast are running a competition to win a copy of my book which they started today along with posting a guest blog from me: see https://www.facebook.com/findmypast/ &
https://blog.findmypast.co.uk/i-traced-all-46-of-the-men-in-a-wwi-ancestor-1651543748.html, so yes, you lucky people have got two huge bits of
And secondly, my favourite comment of recent times has come courtesy of a friend who's a teacher in a girls' school: "Everyone loves the book and I have to lock the Library copy up when I am not there to prevent it from disappearing. The only other book that has this distinction is a glossy one about the filming of Poldark." !!
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