Four years ago this week, I started this blog.  So it’s my Blogiversary! And time for me to indulge a little by reflecting back on the last few years of this blog.
Way back when, the purpose of my blog was to write about my research into the Essex town of Great Dunmow during the turbulent reigns of Henry VIII and his three children.  I had spent the previous two years pouring over documents written five hundred years ago looking at religion and society in this rural parish within Essex in order to achieve my MSt Local History from Cambridge University.
A page from Great Dunmow’s churchwarden accounts. This is the main source used in my dissertation for Cambridge University’s Master of Studies in Local History.  The title of my dissertation was  the not-so nattily titled “Religion and Society in Great Dunmow, Essex circa 1520 to circa 1560“
I decided on my blog’s name, Essex Voices Past, because I wanted my readers to be able to engage in the past and hear (figuratively speaking!) voices from the towns and villages of Essex.  However, since those early days of my blog, I now seem to be writing about towns in other counties within the East of England, such as Hertfordshire and Suffolk.  Perhaps I should have called my blog “The East of England Voices Past“!
Since I first started my blog back in 2012, my writings and my research have changed direction. Long before I started to research Tudor history, I had a lifelong passion for genealogy, local history, the First World War and vintage postcards.  I am very fortunate that over the last couple of years I have been able to professionally indulge in those passions and combine my obsessions to produce a number of history books for Amberley Publishing.  Unfortunately this has meant that my posts on this blog have decreased dramatically.  I still spend all my time researching and writing, but now my output is in book format.
To-date, I have three local history books to my name.
Click on the picture to purchase my book
Click on the picture to purchase my book
Click on the picture to purchase my book
This year, I am in the process of writing three further books for Amberley Publishing. Â One book on the messages written on postcards from the First World War, and two more books on towns and villages in Essex.
– Postcards from the Front: 1914-1919
– Billericay and Around Through Time
– Brentwood and Around Through Time
This week is the third anniversary of me starting my blog, Essex Voices Past. Â Reflecting back on the previous year, it has been an exciting and emotional year, both personally and professionally. Please indulge me by letting me reminisce back on my 2014.
Personally, I welcomed into our family my new son-in-law when my precious first born married her love almost exactly a year ago. I am delighted to say that they are expecting the imminent arrival of their own first-born anytime within the next few weeks. My second born, my beautiful wildchild (shhh don’t tell her I said that!) has also flown the nest to live in Bishop’s Stortford with her love. Ironically, whilst I was researching my first local history book, Bishop’s Stortford Through Time and coming home recounting tales of what a great place it is, my daughter also fell in love with the town. She and her young man now live in the historic centre of Bishop’s Stortford town. My youngest, my last born, who I had to home educate for a year (and wrote about on this blog in a series called School Trip Friday for the Academically Challenged), is now thriving at a specialist dyslexia school in the heart of rural Suffolk. My fight to get him an education he could access was worth the almighty fight I had with my local authority.
I am very proud of my family: my daughters, son and son-in-laws. With all the horrors currently going on in the world, it is fantastic to see the next generation steaming through and making something good of their lives.
My family – posing for a photograph for my first local history book
On the same note (my children), much of what happened when I was fighting for my son’s education should never have happened because of the laws and regulations in England, which are supposed to protect our vulnerable children. With that in mind, I complained to Local Government Ombudsman about my local authority’s behaviour during my struggle. In spring 2014, my complaint was upheld by the Ombudsman with the result that top bods at the Council had to apologise to me both in person and in writing for their behaviour, and give the Ombudsman assurances that they would change their processes. Justice for the little guy.
Professionally, I made the move from my career as a full-time technical business consultant, to concentrating on being a full-time historian and author (but still doing the very ad-hoc piece of IT work!). The move has been fantastic – I commuted for nearly 3 hours each working day from Essex into London for over thirty years. My commute is now 10 seconds: I rise from my bed to put the kettle on for the first cup of tea of the day before settling down at the kitchen table with a cuppa and opening my laptop ready to start work.
I have expanded my writing and now spend all my working time researching and writing either blog posts or books. Â My first book Bishop’s Stortford Through Time was published in September and appears to be selling well. In October, to promote my book, I went on a virtual tour around the internet, talking about “all things history”.
In January 2014 I started writing a regular slot on Julie Goucher’s Worldwide Genealogy – an international collaboration of genealogists, family historians and historians. It is a fantastic blog, I do recommend you to take a look. My December post was about the famous Christmas Truce 1914.
Shortly before Christmas 2014, the British Newspaper Archive (a department of the British Library) printed a condensed version of my blog on the Christmas Truce 1914 on their own blog: The story of the 1914 Christmas Truce, as reported by WW1 newspapers. This led to an editor from the BBC World Service contacting me and requesting that I give two radio interviews to the BBC world service about my research into the Christmas Truce. It was very exciting to give the radio interviews and it was from this point that I finally felt that I had arrived as a bona fide historian.
My 2015 is also shaping up well with the highlight being the imminent arrival of my first grandchild. Â I am also in the process of moving houses and will shortly be leaving Great Dunmow to live in one the most beautiful and wildest parts of Essex, on the Blackwater Estuary in between Heybridge and Goldhanger. Â My current bannerhead on my blog is an aerial view of the Blackwater Estuary (photographed by my son’s drone) – my new house is “somewhere” on the photograph. Â I will continue to write about the history of Great Dunmow and the beautiful district of Uttlesford, but will also be writing about Maldon and Heybridge.
X marks the spot of EssexVoicesPast’s favourite place in the whole of England.
I also have four books – all commissioned by Amberley Publishing – in the pipeline. The first two on the list are shaping up well and are due to be published this summer.
Do you believe in serendipity and synchronicity? The strange forces at play when various unrelated events appear to coincide with each other? As 2013 drew to a close, I had my own piece of inexplicable synchronicity.
In my last post, when I reflected back on two years of writing a blog, I told how it came about that my severely dyslexic son is now in a school for dyslexic children. This hasn’t just been a change for him but also for me as it’s meant the end to my career and working life in London. His wonderful school is in the wrong direction to London and there are absolutely no means by which I can do the school run both ends of the day whilst working in London. So, I’ve had to give up my London-based career of 30 years, and once he settled in his new school last term, I was about to start looking around for a new one.
Just as I was about to start making my plans, into my email inbox flew an unsolicited email from a commissioning editor from Amberley Publishing – a mainstream publisher of local and specialist history book. The editor had read my blog and wanted to talk to me about commissioning me to write a history book! Much toing and froing of emails went backwards and forwards between us until finally, just before Christmas, they agreed to commission not just one, but three history books from me.  I now appear to have a new career as a fledgling author of local history books.  A strange coincidence that just when, for the first time in my adult life, I had time on my hands to write and needed a new career, Amberley Publishing were looking for new authors and stumbled across my blog. Coincidence or synchronicity?
So now, I’m officially researching for my books and will be writing each of them in the coming months and years. Â If you have read my blog over the last two years, you will know that I am an obsessive collector of old vintage postcards – particularly those depicting our country’s rich past – moments in time captured by our ancestors through their camera lenses. Â It will be no surprise to you, therefore, that each of my books is based around vintage postcards on a particular theme or subject.
Here are the titles and release dates for each of my books.
Bishop’s Stortford Through Time (publication date: late 2014)
This book continues Amberley Publishing’s Through Time series of fully illustrated books which traces towns and villages of Britain by comparing vintage postcards to modern-day photographs. Â My book will tell the story of this Hertfordshire market town through postcards dating from the first half of the twentieth century, compared to modern day photographs of the same locations. Bishop’s Stortford has a rich heritage and rural past before urban regeneration took place and transformed it into the large sprawling town it now is, with a growing population of just under 40,000. Â I hope to capture some of its past in my book and show the town as it once was in its Edwardian and pre-First World War heyday.
Bishop’s Stortford – The Old Boar’s Head
Bishop’s Stortford – Cricket Field Lane
Bishop’s Stortford – The River Stort
Sudbury, Lavenham and Long Melford Through Time (publication date: Summer 2015)
Continuing Amberley Publishing’s Through Time series of illustrated books about Britain’s towns and villages, this book will trace these three beautiful medieval  Suffolk wool towns through Edwardian, pre-First World War and inter-war postcards. It is ironic that the continuing existence of many of Suffolk’s outstanding medieval buildings bear testimony to the collapse of the wool trade in the area.  This collapse led to rural poverty, which, in turn, meant that many medieval Suffolk buildings were left in tact and were not “enhanced” or replaced by the enterprising Victorians. Many Edwardian postcards of these three towns show these medieval buildings – which were once homes and trading-places of fabulously wealthy merchants – but in the Edwardian period reduced to unsanitary and poverty-stricken living quarters.  Modern photographs will show how these buildings have been restored in modern times to their former medieval glory.
Lavenham, The Guildhall of Corpus Christi
Long Melford, The Green
Sudbury, Thomas Gainsborough’s birthplace
Postcards from the Front: Britain 1914-1919 (publication date: Summer 2016)
During the Great War (and in the years immediately afterwards), soldiers, sailors and nurses regularly sent home postcards to their loved ones. With the censors removing anything which could give away the sender’s location or military strategy, most soldiers posted simple messages sending their love to all at home. In amongst the hundreds of thousands (if not, millions) of postcards sent home from the Front, some postcards have short messages giving fuller testimony to experiences of war. This book recounts the stories of a few of Britain’s men and women who served in the Great War through their postcards home. This book was entirely inspired by my post Postcards from the Front – from you loving son. Â I am so happy that I have been given the opportunity to turn this one post into a full book and so can retell the stories of some of the men and women who gave their today for our tomorrow.
Postcards from the Front: Christmas Day in the trenches 1916
The flag we are willing to sacrifice our lives for in order that they may continue to float over free peoples. What I tale I will have to tell you all later of a Xmas day in the trenches. Fred
The future of my blog?
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to persuade Amberley Publishing to commission a Through Time book on Great Dunmow as the population of the town isn’t big enough. Â A shame in one respect because I have so many previously unpublished postcards of the town, but good in another respect because it means I can keep blogging my stories about Great Dunmow – which, for contractual reasons, I wouldn’t have been able to do, if I was writing a book about the town. Â So my blog will continue… when I have time to write posts.
I would also like to find a publisher for a book retelling some of  my stories about Tudor Essex. For example: the witches of Tudor Essex; the assize judge who condemned many Essex people to death; and the (not so) invisible women of Tudor Essex.  If any publisher or e-publisher would like to commission me to write a book on Tudor Lives of Essex, I would love to hear from you.  In the meantime, I hope to continue to write stories about the Tudor Lives of Essex folk on my blog.
A plea for help…
If you can help me in any way with vintage postcards of subjects for any of my books, please do get in touch with me at thenarrator[at]essexvoicespast.com. Or, if you can help me with access to any areas – schools, churches, stately homes – so that I can take modern-day photographs of the towns and villages I am writing about, please do contact me.
Serendipity? There is one final part of strange coincidences to this story. Amberely Publishing are based in the small Cotswold town of Stroud – the very town where I grew up and spent my formative teenage years. A town I once knew and loved well. Â I hope to be spending some happy hours revisiting my childhood roots when I visit “my” publishers.
Exactly two years ago this week, I created this blog and published my very first post – a verbatim transcript of the first page of the 1520s financial accounts of a church: the churchwardens’ accounts of Great Dunmow, a small town in Essex. Not a dry dusty document consisting of monetary figures, but a living breathing document which opened up to the modern reader, some small insight into the workings of an East Anglian town, during the turbulent reign of Henry VIII and his children.
Local History of a small East Anglian town
My initial post came-about because originally, my blog’s sole purpose was to publish some of my research for my dissertation ‘Religion and Society in Great Dunmow, Essex, c.1520 to c.1560′ from my Cambridge University’s Masters of Studies in Local and Regional history awarded to me in January 2012 (sadly, the degree no longer appears to be running).  Before creating my blog, I had decided that I wanted to record for myself a semi-permanent record of the results of the research I undertook for my dissertation, along with verbatim transcripts of Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts – an incredible primary source dating from the 1520s which formed much of the basis of my dissertation.
So my blog was created for purely self-indulgent purposes of furthering some of my dissertation’s research and recording some of the research I had already carried out. However, to my surprise, I found that as I started to write more and more posts, I began to collect a great many readers from all over the world who appeared to enjoy my posts and were interested in my research. So I carried on researching and writing posts about Great Dunmow to be shared with you, my readers.
Local Essex history and the First World War
Previously to my masters research in Tudor Great Dunmow, I had spent many years researching the men of Great Dunmow who had marched away to war in distant lands during the years of 1914 to 1918, never to return. Families and localities torn apart by wars fought in far distant lands – far away from the rural peace of East Anglia. Â I decided to include my research into these stories onto my blog too. By using contemporary postcards of the time, I have been able to retell the stories of many men of Essex – including my own ancestors, my grandfather’s cousins, the Kemps of Great Dunmow.
Gordon Parnall Kemp – my grandfather’s cousin – in the early 1900s, before he was killed amongst the mud and horror of the Battle of Passchendaele in 1917. His father, James Nelson Kemp, a respected publican in Great Dunmow is standing in the doorway of his pub, the Royal Oak.
Victorian and 20th century history of Great Dunmow My research into Great Dunmow in the First World War naturally led me into researching other aspects of the town’s Victorian and Twentieth Century history:-
One of the original ‘Essex Girls’ – a Victorian miss dressed in her Sunday-best, captured through the lens of Great Dunmow’s Victorian photographer.
Local history of Essex’s past My dissertation wasn’t my first adventure into the past of Essex – the county which I have lived in for exactly half my life and nearly all my adult life. Â I had long been researching various other aspects of Essex life and during the last two years published on my blog some of that research. Â I have many many more articles lingering on my computer written during my time in Essex – I need to dust them off and polish them up so that I can then publish them here – which I hope to do over the coming months.
The apprehension and confession of three notorious witches. Arreigned and by iustice condemned and executed at Chelmes-forde, in the Countye of Essex, (Joan Cunny, Joan Upney and Joan Prentice) (1589)
The wider historical context
Of course, any micro-historical study of a tiny aspect of local history also has to consider the wider environment. The events of 16th Century Great Dunmow and Essex did not happen in isolation: they were a result of the actions and edicts of the Tudor kings and queens. Â So on my blog, I have posted articles about the kings and queens of fifteenth and sixteenth century England.
Henry VIII praying in his bedchamber from The Psalter of Henry VIII (England, S. E. (London), c1540-1541) shelfmark Royal 2 A XVI f.3.
Medieval illuminated manuscripts Whilst researching some of my posts on the Tudors, I also discovered some of the most beautiful primary sources in existence: exquisite medieval illuminated manuscripts.
School Trip Friday for the Academically Challenged Unknown to me, at the same time of creating my blog, my small son’s time at one of Essex’s oldest public schools was coming to a disastrous and awful end because of his severe dyslexia. Â To cut a very long and painful story short, I removed him from the school, home educated him for over a year whilst fighting my local educational authority through the courts to make them provide him with an education he could access. Â This resulted in two highly stressful Tribunals within a 10 month period – with one going to a full contested Hearing consisting of expert witnesses and a leading educational barrister, in front of a Judge and Panel, to decide my son’s educational future. Â Fortunately the Judge agreed with myself and all the experts (which ironically included the local authority’s own experts) and my son is now in a tiny wonderful school which specialises in children with dyslexia and other related educational needs. (If you told me two years ago that I would have to go to a court of law, and instruct solicitors and barristers to enable my son to have an education, I would have laughed at such a ridiculous notion. Â I know better now.)
I can honestly say that this was one of the most stressful and painful experiences of my entire life – not only having to come to terms with the extent of my son’s disabilities, but also because of the appalling manner the local education authority conducted themselves during this time. Â This is not the place to document this awful experience – suffice to say that it is now in the hands of the Local Government Ombudsman who have launched an official investigation against the local education authority into my son’s case. Â The appalling and morally corrupt process in this country for making local authorities put in place an education a child with special educational needs can access, has left me a fervent campaigner about the rights of disabled children, and their right to an education. Â A basic right most people think as a “given”- but which is sadly not for many thousands of disabled children in this country. You may have seen me on Twitter commenting on this.
During my fight for my child, I came to hate the very name of my blog because the very county I loved so much and whose history I had written about with such great affection, had turned in on myself and my son. Â Unfortunately, despite having national laws protecting vulnerable children, these laws are very much open to interpretation by the local authority in which the child lives – an accessible education for a disabled child really is a post-code lottery. Â At the height of my fight, after being told to leave Essex by my barrister and move to a local authority which treated children with special educational needs better, I hated Essex so very much that I was determined to destroy my blog, all my research and all my postcards and sources I have about Essex. Â But fortunately, I realised in time that this would be a foolish knee-jerk action and would only hurt myself and other Essex historians. Â The self-serving department within Essex County Council that my action would have been aimed at are far too ignorant to have cared one jot.
However, one bright point in this horrendous situation was personally teaching my son to love history. Â One of his teachers at his previous school unkindly told me that my son was “academically challenged”. Â It was with her words ringing in my ears that I decided to blog about teaching my son a love for history: School Trip Friday for the Academically Challenged. Â During our year together, my son (and I!) learnt a great deal about our great country’s history. Â There’s not many small children who can boast that they have personally visited the site of Richard III’s burial under a council car park in Leicester! I have thoroughly enjoyed sharing my love of history with my son by way of our field trips, and then writing about our visits to share with you. Whilst he cannot read my posts on my blog, he takes great interest in what I write and we often sit together looking at the photos on this blog of our trips around England. Ultimately, we went on many more trips then I had time to write-up – I was also working part-time whilst home educating him during this period. Â So my blogging came after his needs and my fast learning of the educational law of England.
Using vividly painted 1930s cigarette cards and 1900s postcards to teach my son the chronology of English kings and queens.  The tableau above was when we learnt about the Princes in the Tower, and who we thought murdered them. This image came from my most viewed post of the last year (or so!)School Trip Friday – Of Cabbages and Kings
Looking towards the future of my writing…
Finally, apologies about the length of this post. But two years is a long time in the life of a blog, in this fast moving internet age. Â It seemed that the time was ripe for me to reflect back on my blog and self-indulgently share those reflections with you.
I now want to share with you the future of my blog and of my writings. Â 2014 is a new year and a new beginning for many members of my family – including my son in his new school. I too have a new beginning which I want share with you, my kind and encouraging readers, who have spurred me on to keep writing during the highly stressful year that was my 2013.
Next week I will tell you my own “news” about the future of my writings.
Yesterday and today I am publishing my most viewed 12 posts from the last year. My top 1 to 6 posts were described yesterday – so today I am sharing with you my top posts from 7 to 12.
7. The Medieval Spinsters – The medieval ladies from Raymund of Peñafort’s Decretals of Gregory IX with glossa ordinaria (the ‘Smithfield Decretals’)
8. Mappy Monday – My top 7 websites for medieval, early-modern & modern maps of London & Great Britain
12. The Dunmow Flitch – Can you prove that you’ve been happily married for a year and a day without a cross word passing between you? Read my account of the 2012 Dunmow Flitch.
Which were your favourite posts and why?
Please do leave your thoughts on my blog below.
Thank you!
A year ago today, I published my first post, Great Dunmow’s Medieval Manors, on this blog.  Originally, I created my blog to publish some of my dissertation research ‘Religion and Society in Great Dunmow, Essex, c.1520 to c.1560′ from my Cambridge University’s Masters of Studies in Local and Regional history awarded to me in January 2012 (sadly, the degree no longer appears to be running).
However, over the year, this blog has evolved into a patchwork of posts all loosely based around the local history of the North Essex town of Great Dunmow, English medieval history, early-modern England and Tudor history. To celebrate my blog-anniversary, today and tomorrow I will be publishing my most viewed 12 posts from the last year. Â Thank you for reading my posts, writing lovely inspiring comments, and ‘talking’ to me on twitter. Â I look forward to writing another year of posts and sharing with you my view of England’s rich heritage and history.
Below are my most viewed top 6 posts from the last year.
4. The clergy in pre-Reformation England – The vicars and ‘Sirs’ of the pre-Reformation Catholic clergy with particular reference to the 1520s clergy to Great Dunmow.
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My family – posing for a photograph for my first local history book
Bishop’s Stortford – The Old Boar’s Head
Bishop’s Stortford – Cricket Field Lane
Bishop’s Stortford – The River Stort
Lavenham, The Guildhall of Corpus Christi
Long Melford, The Green
Sudbury, Thomas Gainsborough’s birthplace
Postcards from the Front: Christmas Day in the trenches 1916
The flag we are willing to sacrifice our lives for in order that they may continue to float over free peoples. What I tale I will have to tell you all later of a Xmas day in the trenches. Fred
