dittybox

  Many of us have heard snippets of family history from our parents and grandparents, and now we have access to historical records online, we can dig a little deeper and trace the line back a little further.  It's fascinating stuff, but at the same time deeply frustrating, because there are always so many more questions to ask and nowhere to go to find the story that lies behind the documents. Simon Mawer's answer to this is to write an informed fictional account of what he thinks would have happened, and although he already has the bare bones of the story mapped out, I can assure you that this is not as easy as it looks.  I tried it myself when I was putting together a history of my side of the family, and as I went forward I realised I was creating the ancestors I wanted to have and the reality was probably something wildly different. There is always a great temptation to have people conform to modern standards, especially with the women.  Women from every era can ...

  This book didn't look like much when I picked it up but by the time I finished it I came to realise that I have met quite a few Gypsies over the years and hadn't cottoned on at the time. Gypsy surnames include Boswell, Lee, Penfold, Locke and Midgely and they are likely to deal in scrap metal, scaffolding, road surfaces burger vans as well as the traditional fairground rides.  When a group of workers came to do the block paving on our drive, I thought they had said they came from Romania but now I've read the book I realise they must have said they were Roma - Gypsies - and they were the hardest working men I have ever come across.  They were all related and their name was one from the book. Gypsies originally came from Egypt and spread upwards through Europe and on to the UK.  They have always preferred to keep to themselves and still use the Romani language, partly to keep up the tradition and partly because the rest of us don't know what they are talking about. ...