Where did the time go??
Working in a school means that certain times of the year are flat out, summer term being one of them. It has meant that Substack has had to take a back seat. However, the history side hasn’t, I have just had no time to write about it!
Archaeology
This stops for nothing but the weather! May and June in the UK were sweltering so rather than giving up digging because of the rain, it was the heat that got us. However, it did mean we were able to touch one of our trenches for the first time in 18 months. Normally flooded it was clear, though that was the one and only time! The search for the Holy Well continues!
However, that is a post for another day!!
Pop ins
Our town does not possess a museum. Our archaeological finds are spread throughout the county, Oxford and the British Museum. We have nowhere to celebrate our history. Campaigns started about 40 years ago, but didn’t actually get anywhere. Now one of the empty shops has been taken over as a ‘meanwhile’ space. This is a space that is open to the community while a tenant is found. We have a ‘permanent’ history display up now, and run pop in sessions. It has been brilliant getting out and talking about history, showing the town off at its best. We have also been out and about at fairs and carnivals!
Ramblers
When my mum died a couple of years ago my dad was persuaded to join the Ramblers. At the age of 84 he travels around the area, and sometimes further afield walking, sometimes 10 miles in one trip. This year is the town’s Ramblers 40th anniversary and dad persuaded me to help them out. So they came up with 40 places of interest and I have written a history about them all. The walk is 6.5 miles and we will finish by popping into the pop-up museum at the end.
After reading the 50 day challenges I have decided to create these into challenge posts. Starting in September I will post one a day for 40 days, I might even stretch to 50! A kind of One Place Study challenge, though the main town doesn’t feature in my study area….
Book
Now we come to the book. This has been kind of written for a while and I keep tweaking it, but now it has to be finished for publishing in a month. I was tasked with writing the history of our, now demolished, watermill. The comment was ‘I know there isn’t much so a small pamphlet will be ok’. Little did I realise how much there was once the research started.
This will also be set of blog posts at some point!
Family
I was determined that this summer was going to be family and history. I have accomplished both in the first two weeks. I have tried to balance out the needs of both my grown up children, pub for one, walks and Netflix for the other.
Where we live is very special, and the history is amazing. So that will be my challenge for the next year, to write about where I live, and grew up.
Decades ago I wrote an audio tour of my hometown and it was such fun - stringing all the lotto stories together to encourage locals. But also visitors, to see the history around them. Your Ramblers project sounds like something similar. Best of luck! And I love the “meanwhile” museum!
Grea lt updates on your projects, all sounds fascinating. Keep us informed. The Rambler posts sound really fun!