Never Say Never

P1000449 Wish Tower Plan, a photo by Lillput on Flickr.

...or in the words of my friend, CL "Try anything twice, the first time might have been shit".

I have always spurned the study of history. I was a scientist and we were at constant war, when sixth-formers, with the historians. I was very juvenile, to be honest but I stuck by my ignorance of history.

My school history lessons were a bit scattershod, as I remember: bits of the industrial revolution (Spinning Jenny, anyone?); the evolution of crop rotation systems (three field system, possibly) and a little bit about local architecture (which bits of Keynsham were 1950's and which bits were older...plus a visit to the Roman Villa).
But there was no overall context, nothing about the monarchy, or about what and when the mediaeval era (was it an era?) began and ended...you know, stuff like that.

It was literally only a few months ago I Iearned that we had no king or queen for a while (oh, so that's what they mean by "The Restoration").

My good friend and man who does "ago" on a professional basis, DrC, sighs at my lack of knowledge and periodically tries to address it - but largely without success. Or rather "visible" success.

But an odd thing has been happening...I've recently had many reasons to make some feable attempts to improve my understanding of some things.

S took me on an archaeological dig (he's a keen but sporadic member of an archaeolgical society over in the East). The back-breaking work of sifting soil and pulling out sherds (not shards, apparently) of pottery turned interesting when we learned that some of the apparently uninspiring red clay stuff was REALLY OLD pottery.

Then I went to the theatre to see Anne Boleyn. Brilliant play and with an intriguing portrayal of James VI/I (to be honest, I did know that James VI Scotland was also James I England but I had no idea when that was). After the play my friends and I discussed the historical stuff - including whether James had some sort of acknowledged illness which lead to his weird behaviour.
As soon as I got home I found it necessary to do a bit of research and found out that he is suspected of having porphyria like George III. But my research made me look at the line of succession which lead to our present Queen.

Then there's my wannado project involving a Martello Tower in Eastbourne.
It's progressing everso-slightly but whilst I wait to learn whether we've got any chance of doing it for real the history of the building has got me by the scruff of the neck.
I've read a book or two, a number of websites and got really quite hooked on Wikipedia.
In my reading I learned that the National Archives may have some information not available in electronic form.
I ask for them to copy some of the stuff that looked relevant but was told that due to the complication of medium I'd have to visit in person.
I tell S about this and he suggested that we pay a visit.

So last weekend saw us on a mission to Kew. Neither of us have done this kind of thing before but we get through the application for a reader's ticket (including a test on how to handle documents) without any problem.
We go and request our documents and with just a bit of confusion over swiping cards in and out of rooms (my confusion, that is) and general confusion over table allocation we had our first set of original documents to look at.

It was a collection of plans of Martello Towers drawn by hand about 200 years ago - and they were letting us handle them!

We tried to be pretty focussed on what we looked at - it would have been really easy to get sidetracked by other towers and forts. Well, actually we did get sidetracked by those things...but we tried not to.

We collected another lot of documents and we readily understood why they couldn't be copied without a visit. It was an enormous bundle of plans rolled together and tied around with tape.

Handling these papers (all about the size of a flip chart pad) which had been rolled for ages and were on something like thick cartridge paper was terrifying. With a little assistance from one of the members of staff we got what we needed for now.

We were in need of refreshment and fresh air so we called it a day and left, both thoroughly impressed by the experience.

Sunday morning saw us with laptop and the National Archives website looking for more stuff....and then, in order look a little wider, reading some background information on the subject of the Napoleonic conflicts.

Today I found out that the last custodian of the tower was called Smith and that his son was born in the tower. I've now got this urge to find out more about him.

So is this how historians start? (albeit it a LOT earlier)...some tiny thing starts their interest and in order to understand it, they have to widen their understanding of the things that surround and underpin the tiny detail they're interested in?

And it is the very papers themselves that help you connect to the subject matter? Would I be less enthused had the plans been available to download electronically?

In any case, I can't be anything but immensely proud of living in a country that allows half-witted members of the public, like me, to get the feel of history...and all for free.

We're already planning a return visit and I can't wait.

I now want to learn how to research historical information more effectively so maybe DrC's influences have been rubbing off after all...