Getting started on new writing

As mentioned in my last blog post, the majority of the family archives consists of diaries, letters, photographs and ephemera written and collected by three women, sisters Edith (E.R), Anne (Queenie) and Winifred (Winnie or Winks). Smart, driven, active women, these sisters documented their lives and carefully kept the records and this has provided me with a wealth of inspiration. The main challenge is working out where to start and I have decided to start at the beginning, so to speak. My first project is based on the travel diaries and letters the girls wrote between 1898 (when Edith was 12, Queenie was 10 and Winnie was 9) and 1910. There are nine diaries covering this period and a small collection of postcards and letters pertaining to travel and holidays. The first diary is written by Edith and tells of a trip on her wealthy aunts steam yacht. Following on from this most of the diaries have shared authorship and cover holidays in Worthing, Gorleston, Herne Bay, the Cairngorms, Oban, Paris, Devonshire and Glasgow and the Lakes District. Whilst they make good reading on their own, I struggled to find a way to present them in a more inventive way until I started looking for commonalities between them and then I came up with a collection of subjects/chapters that, I feel, best demonstrate how families like the Clarke's holidayed in the late Victorian and Edwardian period. My chapter headings are as follows -

1. We had a splendid journey

2. I rode by myself

3. So we slacked

4. We had tea

5. We went in the motor

6. We all five sallied bravely forth

7. We went to church

8. And after dinner we played

9. We went down on the beach and bathed

10. A curious church

11. We went about

12. We went for a walk

All headings are taken from diary entries and most, I think are self explanatory, with perhaps 'A curious church' (as opposed to 'we went to church') concerned with touristy church visits not going to worship and 'We went about' covering being tourists and doing 'touristy' things.

I am still not confident that there is a book in the writing I have been doing so far but I am confident that there is enough material for an entertaining talk that would be enjoyed by family history, local history and other like minded groups. My to-do list now has to finish my writing, find corresponding photographs from the holidays or use postcards to illustrate the chapters and then work it all into a 50 minute talk. It is nice to get to this stage where I can feel a project coming together. This was actually the very first project I worked on but I put it aside when I began my HMS India research as I wanted that project to be completed whilst my aging father-in-law was around to assist me and to enjoy my findings.

So, back to work now. I have realised that one of the diaries has not been transcribed in full so I need to do that and I have the final two 'chapters' to complete writing..........