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Virginia

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Do you find yourself drawn to reading history books about your town, province? I found myself going through a myriad of regional history books that I own but have never read. I picked one up today and am fascinated by all the things I don't know.

 

Do you find yourself shying away from local history?

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Not particularly, even though I've lived in the same English town all my life.  My mother had an interest, though, and owned a small collection of such books.  I can remember, as a youngun', occasionally flipping through them and finding the photographs intriguing, but local history per se doesn't draw me.

 

I do own a book on Victorian London -- but that's rather more related to my ongoing love for all things Sherlock Holmes.  :D

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I still live in the town I grew up in, and during our first two years at secondary school (age 11-13), all our history lessons were about local history, so we studied quite a lot about the town and I had a particular fondness for the local National Trust property which we spent quite a bit of time on.  I have to admit though, I haven't read or bothered with it much since then!  I'm not really a particular fan of history as a hobby, and most of the local history books I see in the local bookshop always look like quite amateurish and not my cup of tea.

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It isn't so much that I shy away from it, more that there really isn't much for me to read as I live in a such a small village.

 

Tali, looks like an opportunity for you to dig in and write a history of your village!

 

My dad has loads of books about Coventry (my home town) which are an interesting read as it has a lot of associated history.Though I mainly just look at the old photos.

 

That's been my main problem, just looking at the pictures. But my heart has already moved back and hopefully we'll be physically back by this time next year and its just made me want to immerse myself into its history.

 

Not particularly, even though I've lived in the same English town all my life.  My mother had an interest, though, and owned a small collection of such books.  I can remember, as a youngun', occasionally flipping through them and finding the photographs intriguing, but local history per se doesn't draw me.

 

I do own a book on Victorian London -- but that's rather more related to my ongoing love for all things Sherlock Holmes.   :D

 

OB, I LOVE books about Victorian London, which is why I know so little about my own town, lol! I've spent years as a dedicated lover of all things British!

Edited by Virginia
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I still live in the town I grew up in, and during our first two years at secondary school (age 11-13), all our history lessons were about local history, so we studied quite a lot about the town and I had a particular fondness for the local National Trust property which we spent quite a bit of time on.  I have to admit though, I haven't read or bothered with it much since then!  I'm not really a particular fan of history as a hobby, and most of the local history books I see in the local bookshop always look like quite amateurish and not my cup of tea.

 

We never really had that privilege, we learned about our state but not about our town, it was always something you had to do on your own and the hobby seemed to belong to the more affluent citizens who had access to documents and such.

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We never really had that privilege, we learned about our state but not about our town, it was always something you had to do on your own and the hobby seemed to belong to the more affluent citizens who had access to documents and such.

 

Our teacher made it all seem relevant and compelling, and it was only in the next year when we changed teacher and started studying more world history that I lost interest in the subject.  I remember visiting the local country house and some of the local churches in class, plus talking about some of the bigger history subjects like WWII but how it affected our local town.  We may have done some more world history with him, but it hasn't stuck with me.

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Our teacher made it all seem relevant and compelling, and it was only in the next year when we changed teacher and started studying more world history that I lost interest in the subject.  I remember visiting the local country house and some of the local churches in class, plus talking about some of the bigger history subjects like WWII but how it affected our local town.  We may have done some more world history with him, but it hasn't stuck with me.

 

I think in my community, they just assumed that we already knew this stuff because of our parents/grands. We learned about our particular area of the county but the rest was just picked up as we drove around. Sad, really. But its not to late!

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I love looking at old photos of my town. As far as actually reading about it, my town isn't all that old. I think it's the 150th anniversary this year or next, so there isn't a lot. I am a history buff, and I'm really interested in my countries history. We never learned about it in school history classes, we did mostly America and a little UK.

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Our local paper sometimes prints old pictures of my town which are interesting, but as for the history I don't think there's anything particularly outstanding, although Winston Churchill was a local MP at one time (there's a statue of him), and there are associations with Henry VIII and Elizabeth I and various stories about them visiting the area, - my favourite is the rumour that Elizabeth I rode a horse up the stairs of a local hunting lodge - the building is from that period and she may well have dropped in but sadly there's no proof of this story.  And the nearby forest (what's left of it) was a royal hunting forest in Tudor and Elizabethan times and they're rumoured to have hunted there.   

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Tali, looks like an opportunity for you to dig in and write a history of your village!

 

 

 

I wouldn't know where to even start to be honest, even if I did have the time. A lot of it was covered in the village newsletter (which I used to edit) by a local historian that has since moved away, but he only really scratched the surface and I am sure there is a lot more.

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  • 11 months later...

I have always loved history! My favorite class in college, and then art history was my favorite class in art school! There's something magically about knowing how things were before us, where we come from and how things came to be. I feel immense respect for our past as humanity. I also love to read stories and books about how things were back in the day. When I worked as a producer, I was involved in a project where old "grandparents" did real life story-telling to children in their communities, to commemorate the 100 years of the Republic of Panama, Central America, where I was born. Telling the story through those who lived it. Now I am lucky to have a book written by my grandmother about how life was back in the day when she was young, in Dare County North Carolina - USA. I fell in love with it when I found the typed pages in a yellow envelop stuck in a drawer (since the year I was born). I told her we should publish it and we did a hardcover deluxe edition for family and friends a couple of years ago. We are currently launching a paperback edition and soon an ebook so we can share it with more people (plus its easier and cheaper to distribute on online stores). It's really a beautiful book, not that I am biased. I'm really proud of her and her book and I do think it's a charming book. 

Edited by chesilbeach
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