Newsworthy Articles
Kent FHS 50th Anniversary Celebration
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October 2024 saw the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Kent Family History Society, some of whose members (including me) have maintained a constant link since its inception. Kent was one of the early starters and the following few years saw many other county groups being started.
A full day's proceedings took place in the Clagett Auditorium in the cathedral precincts and included the dispersal of the society's remaining bookshop contents, no longer to be taken to one-day fairs. A talk on Aphra Behn, a famous daughter of Canterbury, and now buried in Westminster Abbey, was followed by the AGM, lunch, two afternoon tours, and then tea and the cutting of a celebratory cake. 19 October 2024
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Onwards 2024 - Academia and Beyond
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The word retirement admits of dangerous connotations as if one's world had collapsed and there were nothing further to live for. Oh unlucky man!
It is true that I decided last April, after some four years, to lay down the gauntlet of running the Canterbury Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies, but all good things do indeed come to an end and the arrival of another decade and the slow amassing of other demands, projects and interests meant that something had to give. Connections with the staff and allied bodies remain unbroken, but that most precious gift of time is now running a little more freely for me. |
That tiresome companion of sinfonia domestica, so irksome to so many and so persistent in her constant demands for attention, does now receive more than the occasional glance, but not to the exclusion or even diminution of more interesting affairs. The hopelessly addicted philatelic side of me has been greatly encouraged by my joining both the Royal Philatelic Society and the splendidly companionable Borneo Specialists' Group who soon gently twisted my arm to become a council member and to enjoy their twice-yearly excursions and enticing auctions - here my former auctioneering career soon came to the fore. More locally, the Herne Bay stamp club offers similar pleasures and also good auctions.
My research into the history of Reculver is now in its fourth year. Even a tiny parish can offer huge avenues of investigation in both local and national archives, the latter hardly yet touched. The Herne Bay Historical Society has been more than helpful with my requests and my initial talk to them on my findings is probably overdue for a greatly revised one.
My second great addiction is travelling (but not tourism) and the last few months have seen a minor embarrassment of riches, this piece being written whilst overlooking a wide Spanish plain near Valencia. My familiars know that a third addiction are the Pevsner volumes, packed more tightly than clothing when touring English counties. The four mighty books for London are somewhat battered, the Tower Hamlets and East End districts now walked in their entirety after some four years of intermittent explorations in that part of the capital. At last I was able to visit the streets and districts where my shipwright ancestors lived and worked. Will my life be long enough to walk the whole of London and its environs? The wall map in which I vainly stuck pins of places visited and ticked off fell into shreds years ago.
Zoom was the daughter of covid and has clearly changed many activities for ever, including many formerly 'live' events, but has yet to inveigle its way into my evenings of bridge, chess and scrabble. Looking back, I actually enjoyed the lockdown and its restrictions which afforded valuable time for catching up, including on my diary, now running for about 55 years and which I then typed up in full down to 2000. The last quarter-century, nearly a third of my life, will probably require an equal amount of time and space to write up: things do get busier as one gets older.
My research into the history of Reculver is now in its fourth year. Even a tiny parish can offer huge avenues of investigation in both local and national archives, the latter hardly yet touched. The Herne Bay Historical Society has been more than helpful with my requests and my initial talk to them on my findings is probably overdue for a greatly revised one.
My second great addiction is travelling (but not tourism) and the last few months have seen a minor embarrassment of riches, this piece being written whilst overlooking a wide Spanish plain near Valencia. My familiars know that a third addiction are the Pevsner volumes, packed more tightly than clothing when touring English counties. The four mighty books for London are somewhat battered, the Tower Hamlets and East End districts now walked in their entirety after some four years of intermittent explorations in that part of the capital. At last I was able to visit the streets and districts where my shipwright ancestors lived and worked. Will my life be long enough to walk the whole of London and its environs? The wall map in which I vainly stuck pins of places visited and ticked off fell into shreds years ago.
Zoom was the daughter of covid and has clearly changed many activities for ever, including many formerly 'live' events, but has yet to inveigle its way into my evenings of bridge, chess and scrabble. Looking back, I actually enjoyed the lockdown and its restrictions which afforded valuable time for catching up, including on my diary, now running for about 55 years and which I then typed up in full down to 2000. The last quarter-century, nearly a third of my life, will probably require an equal amount of time and space to write up: things do get busier as one gets older.
21 September 2024
