Saved by a six-year-old

On Sunday morning, a little boy and his mother came into the gallery where I'm exhibiting. They looked a bit uncertain so I went up to them and asked whether they knew what they were looking at. On receiving the answer "No", I gave them a little introduction. At first I wasn't sure how interested they were but they sat down and started to watch the projection. As they were looking at the lives of the men in the group photograph unfolding on the screen, they started asking me questions - and in the discussions that followed it turned out that just that morning the boy had been talking about wanting to do his family tree. Given that he can't have been more than six or seven years old, that was amazing enough but what was even more amazing was that he had decided that when he was labelling his tree, if someone had died in a war he would mark them in red and if they had survived he would mark them in blue - and that was the colour coding I have used in the projection that he was watching. I was so impressed with his interest and enthusiasm at such an early age that I decided to give him a copy of my book. He and his mother looked a bit stunned when I handed it over to them and I wasn't sure what they had made of that when they left. About half an hour later, I went up to another woman who'd just come into the gallery and asked her if she knew what she was looking at, and she said, "Yes, I've been pulled in here at the insistence of my grandson" and there standing behind her was the little boy from earlier. She thanked me for the book (and for the opportunity of lugging it around in her bag!), and with that I asked if I could write an inscription to him. He was called Wilfred, a good old name shared by two of the men in my group photograph, and I would love to know what he ends up doing. Interest and enthusiasm are such important keys to life and I hope that he gets the opportunity to make full use of them.

Wilfred certainly made an impact on me. I must admit to finding exhibiting difficult. I spend vast amounts of time working away on my own in my hermitage to produce exhibits - and then suddenly my work and I are propelled into the public eye where we are open to scrutiny (and also vast waves of indifference as so many people continue oblivious to anything not on the busy tracks of their lives or that requires a longer attention span than the blink of an eye). Coupled with exhaustion from the efforts of trying to get things done in time for the exhibition opening, I'd rather been struggling but that interaction with Wilfred knocked me out of my groove and I ended up having a really good day. I went up to anyone who came in and had interesting conversations with people originally from Brazil, Ethiopia, China, Lithuania (and even some from Norwich!) - and re-learned the truth that if you engage with people and ask them questions your eyes are opened to a whole different world as experienced by others.

I was also surprised by visitors who had come a long way to see the show, having bought my book online, swapped a few emails with me and followed my blog. Both had come up to Norwich just for the day and left lovely messages in my comments book. Maggie had come up from Surrey and wrote:

"What a superb achievement! I was as moved by the changing group photograph in this exhibition as I was by the book itself."

Lesley had travelled with her husband from Warwickshire and wrote:

"The photomontage is quite brilliant - very well worth all your effort in its creation."

It was a joy to meet them. The exhibition continues at The Forum in Norwich every day, 10 a.m. till 4 p.m., until Saturday 1st April. I will be in the gallery at least on Saturday 25th, Sunday 26th, Monday 27th, and Saturday 1st - and maybe on other days next week. Come and see what Wilfred saw.

"That is powerful" & on the radio again

The exhibition at the Forum in Norwich is open (& will be open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. every day until 1st April ). I've got to say that after all the struggle of the last 8 months putting together this new animated photomontage, I am extremely satisfied with the final result. Even just seeing the group photograph projected life-size is quite something, but to then see each of them growing through life towards their fate is moving even though I am beyond familiar with the material. There is one particular moment late on in the film that physically affects me every time I see it, almost as if my heart is being raised in my body. Amazing that a picture on a screen can achieve that - and not only for me. I've stood and watched it with another artist involved in the exhibition who without prompting said "That is powerful". Each of the artworks I've made (the animated tree film, the family tree drawings, the photomontages, the stained glass portraits, the new group photograph) give a different angle on this group photograph, but this is the one I personally find most moving and which would stand on its own without explanation in a gallery anywhere.

There were points in the last few weeks when I wondered whether I would get there. Firstly there were the tribulations with my video editing: the original video editor was taking 3 hours to render 1 minute of video (i.e. 60 hours to output the whole 20 minute film) and even then the quality of the images and transitions was poor. Moving to the new version of the software fixed those problems (it only takes 4 hours to output the whole film and the image is sharp as sharp and requires less computer storage - amazing). I then needed film of the field where the original group photograph was taken - so just a week ago I headed down to Wiltshire. I wasn't exactly sure what I was after but I arrived at ten to eight in the morning to weak sunshine and a bit of breeze with the air full of birdsong - and it was that which made it into the final edit. Given the grey and rain that poured on the days either side, it was almost as if I was being watched over (something I've felt at other times during this project). I hung around for a bit to see if I could improve on what footage and sound recordings I'd already collected but the weather just got worse (and I ended up being very grateful that the farmer's wife let me warm myself up next to her aga).

Then this last week I edited the soundtrack. If I ever do this again, I hope I will have the wisdom to go on some kind of course beforehand - but I didn't have time this time and made up for knowledge and experience with trial & error (lots of error) and some quality swearing - and it has worked.

It'll be interesting to see what the public makes of it. There hasn't been a big push on publicity for this, so we're mostly going to be depending on people visiting The Forum being curious - and at lunchtime I was interviewed by Matthew Gudgin for Drive Time on BBC Radio Norfolk. Sorry for the short notice, but he said it would be going out at 16.40 this afternoon (if you miss it, it'll be available on iPlayer to listen again - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04tlt62 is what I think will take you there).

Hope to see you at the exhibition - I'll be there both days of this coming weekend (18th-19th March).

Coming soon: Exhibition in Norwich & presentations

12 days to go until the 'Who Do You Think They Are?' exhibition opens at The Forum in Norwich (details are here - it's on from 13th March to 1st April) and I've just got the banners signed off to go to the printers. Having to make something eye-catching that is tall & thin when the Group Photograph is short & wide presented an interesting problem, and in the end I decided to take a slice and present two views of it which alluded to the multidimensional nature of what I’ve been trying to do - going from monochrome soldiers into human beings in all their complexity. Here's what I came up with and I think they're going to look great when they're printed 2 metres tall (and you'll be able to see the details in the photomontages):

I've also made good progress with my animated photomontage. In the end I bit the bullet and upgraded to a less recalcitrant version of my video editing software - and the result was a vast increase in speed and quality, and less swearing (there will always be swearing with computers - as one problem gets fixed, others pop up completely unanticipated - I just have to keep reminding myself that it's amazing any of it works at all). Here is a still from the film in the early days before the War:

Imagine that being project at over 2 metres high and being able to see those who grow old alongside those who grew not old. I did a projection test a couple of weeks ago - I imagine those watching it with me must have been rather concerned as to what they were going to say if it didn't work for them after my spending 8 months working on it. I'm happy to report that the response was that it's likely to have a huge impact on visitors. Relief all round. I've still got some finishing touches to make, and I'm also putting together displays for a couple of touchscreens, including one where you can touch each man in the group photograph and see some details for each of them (and rather than just replicate the book, I've chosen other pictures that show different aspects of the men's stories).

There are also a couple of presentations coming up:

• Wednesday 15th March, 18.00 at Wellingborough School, Northants, NN8 2BX - free entry and no tickets required
• Monday 20th March, 18.00 at The Forum in Norwich - free entry and tickets via Eventbrite

Just to say that I am not going to be with the exhibition all the time it is on, but If anyone's planning to make a special trip to Norwich and would like to meet up with me, please get in touch. Currently I'm aiming to be there on Saturday 18th & Sunday 19th March, and then on the Monday for my presentation in the evening. I'm looking forward to getting all this work done and starting to have some kind of social life again!

Finally, my plan to get onto Only Connect has stumbled for now. I applied as an individual and was introduced to my new team-mates five days before the audition. Despite getting on really well together and surpassing our expectations at the audition we were told last week that we haven't made it on for the next series. The door was left ajar, though, as we were encouraged to apply again next year - and by that time we will have had the opportunity to do some serious training and get to know each other properly. And if that comes off, it'll be going on in the run-up to the full-scale version of my exhibition at The Forum in November 2018...

A bleak midwinter + the joy of surprises

I've just had a phone call from Martin Middlebrook. His book 'The First Day on the Somme' was a key inspiration in my wanting to find out more about my family's involvement in the First World War and so last year I had sent him a copy of my book. Unfortunately he was in the middle of a house move and as well as complications with getting the book released by the Post Office, a helping hand had packed it into one of many boxes and it was only now that he had discovered it during the unpacking. It was a light on a grey day to hear him say, "I give you my highest level of congratulation. It's a beautiful piece of work" - and it prompted me to think I might do some writing today, given that I haven't done an update since early December.

I'm currently working away at the animated photomontage as described in previous posts. It has been very laborious and fiddly, and as per usual I have been testing the limits of what my computer can do. Sometimes this leads to incredible frustration as my video editor decides not to play ball and either falls over or produces output different from that which it shows in its preview window - but I seem to manage to find get-rounds to the problems and it is gradually coming together. I've got the backbone of the thing done, and now I am tinkering to get the look and the feel right. Not long to go now until the exhibition in Norwich (see p.10 of http://www.theforumnorwich.co.uk/Event-Guides-NEW/The-Forum-JanMar-17.pdf). I've got an idea to include film of the empty field in which the group photograph was taken, and plan to head down to Wiltshire at some point - and am currently on the hunt for a camera capable of shooting 4K video if anyone's got one they can lend me?

I've been spending long winter hours at my computer with varying degrees of belief that it will work out, whilst trying not to think too much about the fact that I'm not really selling any books at the moment. I sold 357 books in the month up to Christmas but in the 6 weeks since then total sales have been 39 (which includes 10 sold at the presentation I gave in Fakenham in January). I have a long term plan that I think will work out and I'm trying to hold onto that idea as I wrestle with my recalcitrant video editor. That said, I've had ideas for variations to my current plan. Firstly, I'm coming round to the idea that I should put some effort into finding an agent and then a publisher for my next book rather than continuing to try doing everything myself. And secondly I'm wondering if there might be mileage in approaching the Arts Council or other funding body to see about organising getting copies of my book into the hands of history & art teachers & into school libraries.

Another more left field strategem I've been putting into action is an attempt to get onto a TV quiz show. I can't give more details at the moment, but I had the audition yesterday and it went really well. My previous attempt at similarly raising my profile was certainly an adventure if nothing else (see http://andrewtatham.org.uk/countdown.htm) and there are some people for whom that still has more significance than anything-else I've done (!). Whatever, it's good to have other things on the horizon to dream about.

Back to Martin Middlebrook and it really was a joyful surprise to find him on the other end of the phone today. It's brilliant that things can just come out of the blue to brighten one's world view, particularly given the power of the internet to share and make connections. Here are a few other recent joyful surprises:

• Twitter often throws up interesting things to look at, and this newly digitised film (http://blogs.loc.gov/now-see-hear/2016/11/on-the-firing-line-with-the-germans-1915/) includes moving pictures of Prince Heinrich XXXIst of Reuss who my great-grandmother sat next to at the dinner described on p.179 of my book.
• My exhibition, and in particular my stained glass windows, are getting discussed in a forthcoming book by an art history professor in New York. We had an hour's chat on Skype and it was particularly gratifying to hear someone who was so affected by probably the most overtly creative part of the exhibition. In recent times a lot of the focus has been on the history, and it was fantastic to be reminded that I'm an artist and be appreciated by an expert in the field.
• I've had my 25th 5-star review on Amazon, and it's a really good one: https://www.amazon.co.uk/product-reviews/0993530206/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_viewopt_srt?ie=UTF8&reviewerType=all_reviews&showViewpoints=1&sortBy=recent&pageNumber=1 - if anyone-else fancies writing a review, I'd be very grateful - it can make a real difference.

And finally, I must share what someone said about animated film after the presentation I gave in Fakenham. He said it made him feel "both mortal and immortal at the same time" which has got to be one of the best things that anyone has said about it. Being a human being is full of paradoxes and the idea he expressed is central to so much of what I do. I've got to say it was also priceless to see the open-mouthed astonishment on his wife's face, as if he had never before said anything so profound and she was wondering if he was indeed the man she had married.

6000th book sold

It was a year ago today that I headed off for my interview with Jeremy Vine, having no idea of what mayhem was about to unleash. Now a year later I have sold my 6000th book. Incredible. It's been a real up-and-down ride. 3600 of those books were sold in the first 10 days after the interview and I was immediately pitched into the world of mass distribution (& mass communication!) & organising reprints & trying to integrate into the book trade. I thought I'd cracked the selling books thing and that I would keep selling my large volume in large volumes. The truth is that I was in an amazing fantasy land that is experienced by few independently published authors and it didn't continue at that level for very long. Meanwhile I had paid out large sums for reprints and when my sales dipped I wondered if the bubble had burst and I was going to be left with large amounts of books unsold (in which most of my profit was tied up). And so I have become a relentless publicity hound - and though I've not seen the same surge in sales again despite some fantastic media coverage and plaudits (again in the fantasy land that I couldn't have dreamed of), I've been ticking over and it's quite something to say that in the last year there are only 39 days when I haven't sold a book (and half of those were in the Summer when I think there is a slump in most book sales except for beach reading). I've still got a load of books to sell, but it's quite something to have sold my 6000th and to be making something of a profit (and to be able to support the International Tree Foundation as a result).

As a result of William Boyd's great write-up in the Guardian, I've been on a bit of a wave of sales and have noticed various things I hadn't seen before on Amazon - their bestseller lists and "most wished for" lists. For a while I was the No 1 bestseller in Heraldry - which makes you wonder what their definition of "Heraldry" is - especially as I was in competition with various books of baby names and also a book with The Very Hungry Caterpillar on the cover (it turned out to be a book for recording all the family for a new baby). I made it up to No 2 in Genealogy and at one point was No 8 in First World War. The bestseller lists are continually changing based on sales hour to hour, but the "most wished for" lists are slower to change, being based on what customers have put on their wishlists (either to remember for later or to encourage other people to buy for them) - and in these lists I'm No 1 in Genealogy and was No 4 for a while in First World War. And yesterday I had my 24th 5-star review see https://t.co/UsDKvp9yUx (a really lovely one)  - which makes my book the 2nd highest rated in First World War based on customer reviews. It's really quite something - and none of it would have happened without Jeremy Vine getting the snowball launched down the ski-jump and giving me the confidence to carry on in the way that I have. 

Finally I've got to finish with a big Thank You to everyone at Healeys https://healeys-printers.co.uk

who've not only done my printing but been fantastically helpful with the distribution of my orders. They've been an essential mainstay of my year.

William Boyd review in the Guardian!

I'm thrilled to report that William Boyd has picked 'A Group Photograph' as one of his books of the year in the Guardian - see https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/nov/26/best-books-of-2016-part-one. It means a huge amount to read these words from a writer of his stature, whose work I so admire. He is so obviously fascinated with the human condition, with the choices we have to make, how those choices can have repercussions through the rest of our lives and those of our families, and the possibility that extraordinary things can happen, good and bad, at any time, which can fundamentally change our circumstances and outlook. Personally I have a lot to thank him for because his book 'Any Human Heart' provided an oasis for me during a very difficult time when staying in hostel in Adelaide on my research trip out in Australia. There have been times when I have wondered whether I've been on the right path and that book was one contribution to me realising that life can throw all sorts of things at you whatever you do, so you might as well do something you believe in.

My adventures within the book business have continued. I got suspended by Amazon (again!), this time over an admin error - and can only thank BT for the vast experience of unthinking & incompetent "customer support" when I was running my home computer support business over a decade ago. The only solution is to be regularly insistently persistent. It is frightening though how such a small number of businesses have such power over our lives, and that they don't have the impetus to become better because either they have a virtual monopoly or all their major competition is similarly huge and unwieldy and geared for their own convenience rather than that of their customers.

I've also been having quandaries about the pricing for my book. The reason it is not getting into bookshops (unless people order it in) or into the main Amazon web store (where you get the full Amazon marketing support as opposed to Amazon Marketplace through which I'm currently selling) is that I'm not offering a big enough discount to distributors and book sellers - but if I put the price up to allow for that discount, the book will appear unaffordable to a lot of people - and I don't just want to sell to the well-off, particularly when the likes of Amazon then use their discount to undercut any competition. It's so difficult, because I have quite a stock of books which I want to sell both for myself and to raise money for the International Tree Foundation (see the article on p13 of the latest edition of their Trees Journal http://internationaltreefoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Trees-Journal-2016-for-web.pdf).  In the end though, I'm not going to change the price just yet. I think I have to play the long game. I have so many things going for me - each good review or piece of publicity adds to the snowball and I have things happening that can only increase visibility. My game plan for next year is to publish my next book (about the experience of doing this whole project) but my immediate focus is on exhibiting.

The first exhibition on the horizon is at the Forum in Norwich for 3 weeks from 13th March. My work is going to be part of a bigger exhibition entitled "Who Do You Think They Are?", which is based on the idea of looking at all those old photographs featuring unnamed people. Luckily I know who the people are in my photograph but I'm going to be showing what sort of thing you can do with old photographs. What I will be showing is an animated photomontage that shows all the photos of these men building up over time, so that you can see those who grow old alongside those who grew not old. I went for a test session last week and seeing it projected at not far off life-size was fantastic.  There's still a lot of work to do, but over the last few months I've cut out my men from the 1250 photographs they're in and after a bit of development work on the style and process, it should be a case of mechanically ploughing through it all.

To finish up, I'd like to tell you the story of something that has had a huge impact on me personally. On my book page on Amazon I was having a look at the list of "Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought" items. As well as the obvious First World War books  and Good Boy Dog Treats Chewy Twisters with Real Chicken (!) and 'Walking on Sunshine: 52 Small Steps to Happiness' (which by a bizarre coincidence is illustrated by Pugh the cartoonist and grandson of Mervyn Pugh from my group photograph), there was 'The Blood Sugar Diet' by Michael Mosley. Some of the things in the book description stood out for me (especially as there is a history of Type 2 diabetes in my family), so I decided to buy it - and then I decided to do the diet and the exercise that goes with it - and 5 weeks into it, I have lost 21 pounds in weight (i.e. nearly 10 kilos) and am feeling fitter than I have done in years. Quite honestly, it has been rather a struggle since I finished the chemo three and a half years ago - and this year in particular I've been feeling pretty rubbish a lot of the time. I had pretty well given up hope that I would ever be properly fit again, but now I'm actually getting my teeth into planning another long walk (see http://andrewtatham.org.uk/walking.htm for the previous one). Something to look forward to as I'm labouring through the animation...

With Jeremy Vine at the Appledore Book Festival

Having only previously spoken to Jeremy Vine whilst he was interviewing me on Radio 2 in December and January it was a great pleasure to finally meet him at the Appledore Book Festival last weekend. He's a patron of the Festival and it was through his suggestion that I was booked to appear - and I was lucky to spend a lot of time with him over the weekend as we also met up with our mutual friend Helen who had brought my book to his attention in the first place. Although they'd stayed in touch, they hadn't seen each other for over 30 years and there was some hilarity as, when he first saw me, he was interviewing an author on the stage at the same time as trying to work out if the white-haired woman sitting next to me was really Helen - only later in the pub discovering that Helen hadn't arrived before the event and actually she is still flame-haired and remarkably youthful-looking considering she has teenaged children.

When you spend time with Jeremy you can see why he is so successful. He is genuine and interested in people and the world around him, and is always thinking and noting down ideas to follow up later. I also saw at first hand how he is adored by his Radio 2 audience, with people coming up and offering to buy him a drink, inviting him to a housewarming party, and asking to have selfies with him. He took it all in his stride, even when the selfie-taking was an extended palaver because the selfie-taker was of a generation where they weren't entirely in control of their smartphone. Luckily I had my own personal photographer (Helen) so I didn't have to embarrass myself trying to get my personal technology to work:

Another thing with Jeremy is that he knows that his celebrity enables him to do things for good. He wasn't being paid to be at the Festival but he was fully committed to it, wanting to help in any way he could, preparing professionally for the interviews he was hosting, and doing what he can for a small village book festival that is punching well above its weight, with 78 events including some very big names, some of whom came because of his patronage.

Appledore is a friendly place and I can recommend a visit at any time of year, but particularly when the Festival is on - keep an eye out on www.appledorebookfestival.co.uk for details of next year's Festival. I would also recommend The Seagate as a place to stay, eat & drink - they really looked after me, and it was a real treat to find somewhere that bent over backwards to accommodate my various food difficulties.

My event was sold out and chats with various friendly folk beforehand (including one who had come all the way down from Warwickshire to hear me speak) meant that I was nicely relaxed and gave one of my best shows - and was rewarded with a lot of interesting questions afterwards and Jeremy saying it was one of his highlights of the Festival. Now, onwards to shows in Herne Bay and Newbury this week - see www.groupphoto.co.uk/presentations.