To celebrate my forthcoming book, Postcards from the Front: 1914-1919 (due out next Spring), each day from now until Christmas, I will be posting on this blog, postcards from the First World War with their messages home. Â Click on the picture to be taken to an external website which will be of First World War interest. Each day, the link will take you to a different website and, hopefully, help you discover resources new to you. Â Just like a traditional advent calendar, you’ll not know what you’ve got until you’ve opened (or clicked) the door.
My Advent Calendar is my Christmas gift to you. Happy Christmas!
What’s behind the door?… Click on the picture above. When you’ve finished viewing the external website, come back to my blog and, in the comments, tell me what you think of the website you’ve just visited.
My dear Olive, Just a photo of my ship, dear, to you. And so glad to hear from dear old friends once again, dear. We are all happy on board and looking forward for our happy return home again, dear. God bless you. From your loving friend, Arthur
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Thank you for reading this post.
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My books
You may be interested in purchasing my local history books. They make ideal Christmas presents!
To celebrate my forthcoming book, Postcards from the Front: 1914-1919 (due out next Spring), each day from now until Christmas, I will be posting on this blog, postcards from the First World War with their messages home. Â Click on the picture to be taken to an external website which will be of First World War interest. Each day, the link will take you to a different website and, hopefully, help you discover resources new to you. Â Just like a traditional advent calendar, you’ll not know what you’ve got until you’ve opened (or clicked) the door.
My Advent Calendar is my Christmas gift to you. Happy Christmas!
What’s behind the door?… Click on the picture above. When you’ve finished viewing the external website, come back to my blog and, in the comments, tell me what you think of the website you’ve just visited.
This is the view of the “grand terre” of the different Belgium weapons. From left to right:…… 1. Carabinier, 2. Pupil of the Military School of Brussels, 3. Artillerymen, 4. Pomegranate & tree, 5. Guide (cavalry), 6. Infantry of the Line, 7. Light Infantry. Under (left) Lancer (right) Light Cavalry. Don’t forget it’s the dress of time of peace. [The central picture is of King Albert I of the Belgians]
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This blog
If you want to read more from my blog, please do subscribe by using the Subscribe via Email button.  If you’ve enjoyed reading this post, then please do Like it with the “Like” button or Facebook button and/or leave a comment below.
Thank you for reading this post.
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My books
You may be interested in purchasing my local history books. They make ideal Christmas presents!
To celebrate my forthcoming book, Postcards from the Front: 1914-1919 (due out next Spring), each day from now until Christmas, I will be posting on this blog, postcards from the First World War with their messages home. Â Click on the picture to be taken to an external website which will be of First World War interest. Each day, the link will take you to a different website and, hopefully, help you discover resources new to you. Â Just like a traditional advent calendar, you’ll not know what you’ve got until you’ve opened (or clicked) the door.
My Advent Calendar is my Christmas gift to you. Happy Christmas!
What’s behind the door?… Click on the picture above. When you’ve finished viewing the external website, come back to my blog and, in the comments, tell me what you think of the website you’ve just visited.
On Active Service. 8694 C Company, 1 Battalion Cameronians, British Expeditionary Force. 1 July 1915:Dear Harry, just a card with best wishes for a happy birthday and many happy returns of the day. Â With love from Daddy xxxxxxxxx
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This blog
If you want to read more from my blog, please do subscribe by using the Subscribe via Email button.  If you’ve enjoyed reading this post, then please do Like it with the “Like” button or Facebook button and/or leave a comment below.
Thank you for reading this post.
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My books
You may be interested in purchasing my local history books. They make ideal Christmas presents!
Firstly, an apology for lack of posts over the last couple of months.  In the background, my writing has not stopped.  In fact I have been frantically spending every waking hour researching and writing for my next book due out next spring Postcards from the Front: 1914-1919 (ignore Amazon’s date of publication as this is wrong).
My book is the story of a handful of men and women who went to war exactly one hundred years ago, as told through their postcards sent home to their loved ones.  Many of the stories in my book come from single postcards, as single cards is all that has survived from that person. However, I have been able to thoroughly research and retell the story of three peoples’ war.  A female volunteer nurse who nursed throughout the Battles of the Somme in one of the British Army’s largest military hospital in France; and two brothers, one of whom won the Military Cross for his courageous action during the opening day of the 3rd Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele) and the other brother (aged only 19 years old) who was in the Royal Flying Corp/Royal Air Force in the 49 Squadron and took part in dog-fights in the skies above France in 1918.  So my book is a combination of eye-witness accounts (as told through brief messages on postcards), information from War Diaries, and newspaper reports.
My book is due to be published in May of next year. As a taster for my book Postcards from the Front: 1914-1919, throughout December, I will be posting on this blog, postcards from the First World War with their messages home.  Click on the picture to be taken to an external website which will be of First World War interest. Each day, the link will take you to a different website and, hopefully, help you discover resources new to you.  Just like a traditional advent calendar, you’ll not know what you’ve got until you’ve opened (or clicked) the door.
My Advent Calendar is my Christmas gift to you. Happy Christmas!
What’s behind the door?… Click on the picture above. When you’ve finished viewing the external website, come back to my blog and, in the comments, tell me what you think of the website you’ve just visited.
To Mr Burley. With the best Compliments from The Front
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This blog
If you want to read more from my blog, please do subscribe by using the Subscribe via Email button.  If you’ve enjoyed reading this post, then please do Like it with the “Like” button or Facebook button and/or leave a comment below.
Thank you for reading this post.
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My books
You may be interested in purchasing my local history books. They make ideal Christmas presents!
I am delighted to tell you that my second local history book, Sudbury, Long Melford and Lavenham Through Time, has now been published by Amberley Books and is available in “all good bookshops”.
Suffolk is an incredibly beautiful county with a very rich heritage, so I was absolutely delighted when Amberley agreed that three towns/villages within the county would make an excellent addition to their phenomenally successfully Through Time local history book series. Thus my book Sudbury, Long Melford and Lavenham Through Time was born. This is my second Through Time book for Amberley – my first Bishop’s Stortford Through Time was published in 2014.
In common with all books in the Through Time series, each page of my book contains:-
A “then” picture. An historic photograph of a building or street dating from between the early 1900s and the 1920s, for example a vintage postcard or old photograph.
A “now” photograph. This had to be an (almost) exact replica of the vintage view. So I had to locate and stand in the same location as the early 20th Century photographers, and capture a replica modern-day view. This in itself caused quite a few challenges; the main one being that Edwardian photographers did not have to contend with lorries and cars hurtling through the streets, but I did! As a consequence, many of my photographs had to be shot early in the morning; more often than not, on a Sunday. But even photographing early Sunday morning didn’t stop cars taking a prominent role in some of my images.
A short caption and narrative about the view, detailing the view/building and setting it in its historic context.
Writing such a book is a great delight for me, and encompasses some of my life-long hobbies; local history and postcard collecting. I have answered some questions below about my book and hope this q&a session inspires my readers to consider writing their own local history book.
Row of Tudor shops, Lavenham
Swan on the River Stour, Sudbury
Hall Street, Long Melford
What was your catalyst that inspired you to write your book? I have collected postcards ever since I was a small child – inspired by my father’s own love of collecting postcards. I suppose I was somewhat quirky as a teenager; at an age when most of my contemporaries were involved in normal teenage activities, I was haunting postcard fairs buying postcards of fluffy cats and images from children’s story books (I have a fabulous collection of Louis Wain and nursery-rhyme postcards dating from my teenage years.) But as I grew older, I became more and more interested in history and genealogy. As a consequence, as an adult, my postcard collecting tastes turned to postcards with views of the towns and villages I’d lived in. So three years ago, when I started to blog East Anglian local history on this website, it was a very natural progression to start to blog articles about my very eclectic collection of vintage postcards. I never dreamed that I could turn my childhood hobby into a book, until a Commissioning Editor from Amberley Publishing stumbled across my blog and contacted me. Amberley’s Through Time series of books was right up my street, and after a very short negotiation period, we settled on me writing several Through Time books, including my new book on Sudbury, Long Melford and Lavenham.
Why Sudbury, Long Melford and Lavenham? Well, these are three towns and villages that I know very well. Although I live in north Essex, my son goes to school in a tiny village a few miles from Lavenham. My driving route from Essex to this village regularly takes me through Sudbury, Long Melford and Lavenham. I had already fallen totally in love with each place and, even before Amberley had commissioned me to write my book, had spent extensive periods walking and cogitating each place’s history.
How did you decide what images to include / exclude?
Amberley have a very strict criteria that there can be no more and no less than 96 pages to each of their Through Time books. As I was covering three towns/villages, this gave me roughly 30 pages per place; plus room for the normal pages of any book (such as title and copyright pages, introduction, contents page and bibliography). These restrictions, in themselves, gave a certain amount of guidance as to what images I could and could not include. I had to be very strict with myself and with a limited number of pages per place could only include images which would add to the overall story of each town/village. I became very ruthless with my own cutting of images/pages. For example, by the time Amberley’s editors had produced their publisher’s typeset near-final draft, my book had spilled over their limit, so they cut a random page from my manuscript. I objected to the page they had cut and insisted another one was removed and their deleted page reinstated. It took me two seconds to choose what page I wanted deleting. The page the editor had cut was far too important to not be included; so another page/image just had to go. I won’t tell you what was nearly deleted and what was removed in its place! But suffice to say I am more than happy that I took the action that I did. My deleted page still remains in my “those that got away” folder on my computer; perhaps one day I’ll publish all “those that got away” on this blog!
Sudbury’s Market Place; one of my “must have” images
What resources did you consult to in order to write the details which accompanied each page?
British Newspaper Archive – click the picture to explore this rich online archive from the British Library
As a trained historian, I used many primary and secondary sources for my book. This included Victorian census returns and trade directories, reports from all Suffolk’s local newspapers along with other national newspapers. I also consulted The National Archives, Historic England’s Listed Buildings register and local authority/council’s archaeology/conservation reports. I also read many antiquarian books, journals, local historical society publications/websites, Victoria County Histories, and read transcriptions of the Domesday Book of 1086.
Census return from Long Melford. Click the image to be taken to a 3rd party online ancestry resource.
I also took to walking the streets of each town/village to look at street furniture such as plaques on houses/buildings. In particular, Lavenham is stuffed full of buildings with date plaques from the Georgian and Victorian period commemorating being built by local industrialists; Thomas Turner the woolstapler, W. W. Roper the horsehair manufacturer, Thomas Baker the miller and maltster. Each date plaque had to be investigated and researched and, if appropriate, a story written about that person and their buildings. I also talked to local people as I walked each town/village. Many people stopped me during my photographing trips, and from these nameless people I owe my gratitude for pointing me in new directions for my research.
A row of the very successful woolcomber Thomas Turner’s Victorian workmens’ cottages, Lavenham
One fascinating but underused resource I used was Suffolk County Council’s Suffolk Voices Restored. These are cds containing incredible eyewitness oral histories from men and women who grew up, lived and worked in Suffolk during the nineteenth and early twentieth century. I listened to these recordings of people (now sadly long dead) for hours and hours on end, with absolute fascination. The story of the creation of the cds comprising of Suffolk Voices Restored is remarkable in its own right (you’ll have to read my book to find out how/why they came about!). If you are interested in social history and live in Suffolk, then the majority of Suffolk County Council’s libraries will have access to these cds. Do ask the librarian for them, they are fascinating snippets of a bygone age.
I like to think that I looked through and researched every single source that I possibly could, to gain a full insight into the story of each town and village within my book.
Was there any images or stories that you simply felt that you had to include?
During the research for my book, strong stories for each town/village started to shine through, and it was these stories, along with any relevant images, that had to be included. I fell totally in love with each town/village; these are my favourite stories from each:-
Sudbury:So many stories from this beautiful, but often overshadowed market town, emerged. Simon of Sudbury, the medieval archbishop of Canterbury who was viciously murdered in London during the Peasants’ Revolt. Charles Dickens’ caricature of the Rose & Crown Inn (and, indeed the town of Sudbury) in his acclaimed Pickwick Papers. Thomas Gainsborough’s inclusion of Sudbury’s All Saints Church in, arguably, his most celebrated of paintings Mr and Mrs Andrews.  (Click on the link to be taken to the National Gallery’s online image of this outstanding painting, and see if you can spot Sudbury’s church.) The list goes on for Sudbury. But above all, I was struck by the staggering beauty and serenity of the scenic water meadows of Sudbury’s Common Meadows. I was lucky enough to have researched my book during the winter months, so was able to spend a great deal of time walking through these picturesque lands, whilst frost and snow cracked under foot. I remember coming away from my photographing trips to the water meadows with freezing feet and icicles in place of my fingers, but with a very happy and full heart.
An Edwardian view of the mill stream in Sudbury’s beautiful common lands
Lavenham:Remarkably the historic medieval village of Lavenham was nearly lost to us during first quarter of the twentieth century. Many of the medieval buildings had fallen into disrepair and were near derelict by that time. Some of its most famous medieval buildings, such as the old Wool Hall (now part of the Swan Inn), De Vere House, and Schilling Grange, were in the process of being either totally demolished or taken down piece by piece, some to be sold elsewhere (possibly America). It was only the outcry by local people and societies which stopped the destruction of Lavenham’s medieval gems. The story of how the foresight of local people, along with more prominent people (such as Queen Victoria’s daughter, the Duchess of Argyll), saved Lavenham shone through my research. In particular, one local man F Lingard Ranson. Where ever I stepped, Mr Ranson had walked decades before me; both as Lavenham’s historian and its saviour. I didn’t have enough room to extol and give him the full credit he is due in my book, but I will do it here. Simply put, without F Lingard Ranson, our knowledge and understanding of Lavenham, along with the village’s very buildings, just would not exist today. Today’s Lavenham owes a huge debt of gratitude to Mr Ranson and his ilk.
The Wool Hall (on the left), Lady Street, Lavenham as it was at the turn of the 20th century. Without the personal intervention of one of Queen Victoria’s daughters, the Duchess of Argyll, this exquisite medieval building would have been lost to the nation.
Long Melford:Many modern-day tourists who flock to Long Melford are seeking antiques, shops, along with the Tudor heritage of Kentwell Hall and Melford Hall. But nestling alongside Tudor manor houses are the remains Melford’s industrial past; D. Ward’ ironworks, Chestnut Terrace built for the Victorian workers of Long Melford, and the Scutchers Arms celebrating the village’s part in making Irish Linen. But more extraordinary is the story of Long Melford’s riot of 1 December 1885, when villagers fought a violent and bloody battle with men from the neighbouring village of Glemsford. The Riot Act had to be read by a local big-wig, which still didn’t stop the riot, and it only ceased when troops from the barracks in Bury St Edmunds were brought in by train (on a rail line that no longer exists) to quell the riot. The soldiers marched into the village in square formation with fixed bayonets, and cleared out all the pubs and beer-houses in their path. You will have to read my book to learn more about this, one of the most bloody riots in Suffolk’s history, in this picturesque sleepy village.
Sir Cuthbert Quilter. This man was the reason for the riots in Long Melford in 1885
If you purchase my book Sudbury, Long Melford and Lavenham Through Time, I hope you enjoy reading it and this blog post gives you some understanding as to how the finished book came about.
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Newspaper article about my book
Article about my book in East Anglian Daily Times on 21 August 2015
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About the author, Kate Cole
I have a Masters in local and regional history from Cambridge University, a BA in history from the Open University, and an Advanced Diploma in local history from Oxford University – all studied whilst a mature student. Amberley have commissioned me to write 5 books in their Through Time series, and a further book on the First World War. I also give talks about various aspects of East Anglian history (such as the English Reformation in Tudor Essex and the Essex Witches from the Tudor period) to local history societies and groups. I live in Maldon, Essex, and regularly write about the local history of Essex and East Anglia on this blog. Before starting my second career as a local historian, for over 30 years I was a business technologist and computer consultant working in the City of London.
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Where do common phrases and terms in the English language come from?  I asked myself this question recently whilst I’ve been researching my two new books Sudbury, Lavenham, and Long Melford Through Time and Saffron Walden and Around Through Time (both books due out from Amberley Publishing in the next few months).
During the writing of my books, I have been avidly scouring newspaper archives for reports and articles about all the towns I am researching. Â I came across the newspaper report below of a riot in Saffron Walden.
The “Proclamation being read” and “timely Notice” are both referring to the fact that the Riot Act had to be read out to the crowds in Walden. This was a 1714 Act of Parliament which stopped a group of 12 or more people from being assembled. When the Riot Act was (literally) read out (normally by a local big-wig from the town), the crowd HAD to disperse otherwise face being forcibly dispersed and/or arrested. If the crowd didn’t disperse within an hour of the Act being read, then the authorities could take further action such as calling for troops and militia to be sent in. From the newspaper account, it would appear that Walden’s crowd dispersed once the Act was read to them (but still managed to carry away a trophy!).
Later on in history, the reading of the Riot Act caused the infamous Peterloo Massacre (Manchester) of 1819. One of the last times the act was used in East Anglia was in 1885 when it was read in the village of Long Melford. In this case, the reading of the Riot Act did not work and the people of Long Melford and nearby Glemsford continued to riot throughout the village of Long Melford. So the troops from nearby Bury St Edmunds came into Long Melford via the train and dispersed the rioters using brute force with fixed bayonets. Â (My new book Sudbury, Lavenham and Long Melford Through Time looks at Long Melford’s riot of 1885 in more detail.)
As the Act was only repealed in 1967, the term is still used today. It is where we get the phrase “I will read you the riot act” – still used today by many to control unruly children!
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My book
My local history book on the historic East Hertfordshire town of Bishop’s Stortford is still available. Â Please do click on the image below to buy my book.
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If you want to read more from my blog, please do subscribe either by using the Subscribe via Email button top right of my blog, or the button at the very bottom.  If you’ve enjoyed reading this post, then please do click Like button and/or leave a comment below. Thank you for reading this post.
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.
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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