Category: Books & Personal Essays
Writing about books, research, memory and the personal experience of historical work, including the stories behind publications and the relationship between family evidence, place and interpretation. This archive sits alongside the main Books & Research page.
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Growing Up at Stokesay Court: Childhood, Service and the End of a Country-House Era
A first-hand account of growing up at Stokesay Court between 1985 and 1994, inside the last years of the old household and before the house’s renewal under Caroline…
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Sir Philip Magnus-Allcroft of Stokesay Court: A Memory That Stayed
I was four when my family moved to the Lodge at Stokesay Court in 1985. My father had been appointed head gardener and chauffeur to Sir Philip and…
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The Last Years of Radnor Citizens Advice, 2001–2007
This essay reconstructs the bureau’s working life from personal memory and surviving evidence. For the earlier institutional account, see Radnor Citizens Advice Bureau and the Passing of a…
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Voices from the Uplands: Why I Wrote It and Why It Matters
Voices from the Uplands: The Davies Family and the Soul of Rural Wales began with my own ancestors, the Davies family of Caeadda in the parish of Llanwrin.…
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Off the Rails: Why I Wrote the Story of Alfred Jenkins
Off the Rails: The Story of Crewe Steam Train Driver Alfred Jenkins began not as a publishing project, but as an act of recovery. Alfred Jenkins, who lived…
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Richard Emmett: From Salford Poverty to the British Army and Crewe
When Richard Emmett died in Crewe in 1906, there was little in the circumstances of his death to suggest the geographical breadth of the life he had lived.…
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Doldowlod Hall Estate: My Teenage Years, 1995–1997
Between 1995 and 1997, when I was passing through the uncertain territory between childhood and adulthood, the Doldowlod estate became part of the landscape of my life. My…