Let's Hear It For The Archives

The day I pruned the Buddleia and decided to make Archives the framework and the reason for the Sefuty Chronicles, to place ‘Ellen’s Tale’ firmly in recorded memories, it was but a step from one of my soapbox passions.  The archives – wondrous places of excitement, adventure, exploration and revelation.  They are places of puzzles and answers.

I first fell in love  with archives and archival material when I took myself, in my early 40s, to Oxford Brookes University to try my hand at gaining a degree.  The first degree obviously involved libraries (I already loved those from early childhood) but then I moved to Sussex University to do a Masters and, while there, did an extra course on Oral History.  Sussex holds the Mass Observation Archives.  Part of our course involved this Archive – what treasures – I had never realised there were resources so interesting.  A few years later my friend – who by then was into Family History – stirred my interest in this also.  The archives are an essential part of this form of research.

Later still, after retirement, I began a Living History Group at our local U3A branch, it was hard work to interest people, they would insist they had lived such dull lives that no one would be interested in them.  I had to use a lot of persuasion to make them realise they were wrong.  Four years on and they have  produced their own book of memories. Maybe all these memories will only be passed down through family members but, as long as memories of lives lived are remembered history is enriched, and now the memories have been written down they can be archived and are a resource for the future.

I would like to enter a plea for everyone to record in some way some part of their life for future generations.  In the group that I run we have handwritten, typed, Braille and taped memories to show for our months together.  Some are ‘in depth’ life histories, some just isolated aspects of a life. 

Just by chance, on a web search (doing family history in fact), I discovered my father had recorded some interviews back in the early 1960’s.  These interviews of my father had been included in a book.   The reel to reel tapes had been lodged in the archives in Wales and only released a couple of years ago to public access.  His interviews were some of the over one hundred collected in that particular study.  

Primary source material, the glory of all students and researchers, novelists and family history buffs.  Every one of us is an original source of some aspect of life through the 20^th century and beyond.  Archives all over the country will keep our memories safe and, who knows, anyone of us could turn up in a piece of historical research, a biography or an historical novel.    

How many of us bemoan the fact we did not ask our parents / grandparents about their lives before it was too late.  Most of us are not interested when we are younger but there comes a time when we wish we had known more.  So a plea from me, please think of recording something in some format to leave to the generations that follow.  For your families or the archives or both. 

PS. The Archives sent me a CD of my father’s interviews. Now how cool is that, getting to listen to him again, nearly 20 years after his death! 

http://www.albertaross.co.uk/ for details of my books

http://www.didyoueverkissafrog.typepad.com/ for blogs on various non writing topics

http://sefuty.livejournal.com/ for reading and books

http://twitter.com/albertaross

Now what? the spangled web (1)

Well it was great holding that first book – they were signed, wrapped and delivered, now what?  I had decided already not even to try conventional bookshops.  Without a ‘proper’ publisher behind me, it would be down to my own efforts to try and persuade shops to take them – not something I could do.  While I had been struggling with book covers and ISBN problems I had been researching this very matter and had decided I would try the internet.  It didn’t look easy but certainly more comfortable than trying to sell myself to independent bookshops.

I have always liked the internet, from my very first connection back in the early 90s, hooked and totally addicted although, until Ellen’s Tale arrived, I had mainly used it for research for degrees and online shopping.  Indeed my whole experience with computers had been driven by degree research.  I had never used it for anything more frivolous than choosing some fiction from Amazon.  It did seem a logical place to sell Ellen.  Of course all my research on using the internet for selling said the groundwork must be done before publication!!! Not afterwards.

But what to do?  Where to start?  Social networking everyone said.  Yeah right!  I am not the most social of people and from what I had heard places like Facebook and Twitter were full of chatter about where to meet for drinks and the whereabouts of some celebrity.  Was this really the way to go?  One has to trust sometimes and one thing I have learnt throughout life is never to believe gossip and if you are going to dismiss something as rubbish at least give it the courtesy of examining it properly first.  I signed up for Facebook and for Twitter.  Silence on the net is just as resounding as silence in real life.  What does one do when you have the accounts, what to say? 

Find friends, did I know anyone with these accounts?  Well it seemed I did, I never knew they were there before.  So I now had friends from my real life to chat to.  About what?  It comes, it comes; actually it doesn’t take so long, it just feels like it some days.  Then one moves on slowly to friends of friends.  I was there to help my writing and so apart from ‘friends’ there were those with similar interests and not just the writing.  I had found a whole new world of interest which expands everyday I let it.  Like research, paths lead off and, if ventured down, direct one to even more.  I fell under the spell completely.  To chat to friends around the globe.  To lock debating horns with like-minded horns.  To find jewels of laughter and fun.  All these and more sucked me in.

Discipline is needed or whole days can be spent chatting; joining in; finding new sites; joining more groups; offering opinions on an ever-expanding subjects and where the writing?  Where the selling?

I started my journey of self-publishing at the end of 2009 and at the beginning of 2010 I started on the second of what, I then realised, was going to be a series.  At the time I was also involved in co-editing a collection of memoirs for the Living History group that I run for our local U3A.  It proved to be much more difficult than I had anticipated.  Most of these personal accounts had been handwritten and had to be transfered to computer before anything could be done.  Illustrations had to be sorted.  When we had struggled through these, then we had to figure out Lulu!  We did after some weeks and the group seemed well pleased with our efforts.  Around the time we finished I decided I was going to declare myself a writer and stop feeling guilty about the time spent on the computer.  So many hours a day at ‘work’ was allowed.  This immediately took the pressure away and so increased my enjoyment levels.

One of the first things an author was supposed to have was a web site.  I had struggled across the Christmas period to put one together.  Having established a provider I had to then provide the site and I struggled to grasp the different concepts.  HTML, anchors, site structures, navigation and hyperlinks.  I cursed and swore my way again through endless nights as that wonderful thing ‘understanding’ escaped me.  It came.  It came, not in a blinding flash but slowly, painstakingly and with great timidity.  I learnt to write each step down because, as sure as anything, if I didn’t then the next time I tried it – gone, like that.    

I uplifted my attempt early in the year and sighed with relief.  Now that blog site.  What would I write about, who would I write it for.  Why had I done this to myself?

I also blog about anything and nothing in particular at

http://www.didyoueverkissafrog.typepad.com/

and about reading and books at
http://www.sefuty.livejournal.com/

Ellen's Tale: her birth.

Ellen was one of those short stories – well she was intended as one.

Ellen might appear at first to be quiet and well behaved but right from the beginning she’s had a mind of her own. 

Ellen leapt onto the page ready made and named, Bix following so close behind her heels were almost trampled.  I told them firmly they were ‘short’.  I reminded them of it at regular intervals.  They took not a blind bit of notice.  I hastily researched among friends and text books, how long a sort story was, Ellen and Bix had romped well pass the mark, maybe a novella?  They were not having any of it, they took over the keyboard and raced on.  I gave in as gracefully as I knew how and Ellen and Bix slid to a gentle halt when they were ready. 

Proving yet again I was rubbish at ‘short’.  Ah well.

Thinking about Ellen and how she came about is a lesson in how the different influences in one’s life all meld together in the mind.  When I settled down that day to start her Tale I had just finished reading a book about the global food market throughout history.  Fascinating read.  No real leap of the imagination to see the idea of the Sefuty Line being seeded then.

Then those that rode the line had to be bold and brave Heros because . . .? What kind of world would they inhabit?  Well we had been living through a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, following a century of such. . . you get the picture  . . . a world at war.  After that it was easy, my  long held concerns of planet trashing, the horror of modern warfare brought both the reason and the land mines. 

Once the new world was created, it was a matter of thinking about the lack of resources.  On my travels I had often been in places where these lacks are apparent.  Think about super foods and medicine based originally on plants but now manufactured in factories, project into the future and I had pastiles, artificial food. 

I am a confirmed carnivore, so much so that some friends have expressed concern at being shipwrecked with me! Many times travelling through areas of want, meat has not been on the menu, while respecting the reasons I did miss it, (I am sorry if I offend).  I just had to think how much I would miss my roast meat to summon up Grans dying request.

Whilst pruning the Buddleia I was thinking about another interest in my life Family History, and was prompted ponder on the wonder that are ‘The Archives’. I was preparing a small speech about them for a meeting. I host a group, in our local U3A, on Living History where we have been writing about our lives. Among the many passions of my life ‘archives’ loom large. The hidden stories concealed within them fascinate.  A recurring rant of mine at the meetings is for all of us to preserve our memories in the archives for future generations.  Of course Ellen and Bix would be archival material. 

She might have been intended as a short story but Ellen in her determined way has led me into different pasture indeed.  A series of ‘Sefuty Chronicles’ now jostle for space in my head, for room on my computer.

this post was originally published as two on my website.  http://www.albertaross.co.uk/

I also blog about almost anything on
http://www.didyoueverkissafrog.typepad.com/

and mostly about books and reading on
http://www.sefuty.livejournal.com/