Let's Start at the Very Beginning
I've heard, it's a very good place to start.
I’ve always been intrigued about what brought people to history and I thought, for my very first post on this site, it would be an interesting starting point. For some it may have been a book, a film...Horrible Histories...for others, it could have been a particularly inspiring teacher at school or a memorable trip to a castle. For me, it was fairy tales or, more specifically, Disney.
It's hardly unique for a childhood to be filled with sleeping beauties, glass slippers and talking clocks but it was the "otherworldliness" of this past which had me hooked. The clothing, the castles...the dragons...it was so far removed from the world around me, I just wanted to learn more. However, it wasn't until much later I associated this love of fairy tales with the love of history.
History at school, for me, was a bit dull. Primary school was fine, I remember making 'pharaoh masks' and playing an 'evacuee' in a play about World War 2, which appealed to my more creative side. However, by secondary, it became about old, dead men and badly photocopied pieces of paper full of text asking about 'sources'. I don't even remember my teachers and as soon as I could, I dropped the subject. And yet, in 2017 I was accepted to study history at the University of Lincoln, so what had changed? Well, nothing really, except for the realisation that history was more than old, dead, white men fighting in wars.
At around 16 I remember a particular visit to Waterstone's with my mum. Sitting in the upstairs café, chatting over a hot chocolate (with lots of whipped cream and marshmallows, of course) I complained that I wanted to read SOMETHING, something like the fairy tales I had grown up with but for adults (I WAS 16 after all!). However, I still wanted princes and princesses, romance and drama and that was when my mum found Philippa Gregory’s The Other Boleyn Girl. It was perfect. From then on, historical fiction opened up a whole new world of moments to me, moments both big and small that made up our past. And the more I read, the more I wanted to learn about the events, people and places mentioned by these wonderful authors. Yes, a lot of this historical fiction was just that, fiction but I found that by researching these moments, I was building and creating a story of my own and isn’t history just that? the re-telling or re-discovering of old stories?
The books and films I had consumed as a child may not have been based on historical fact but a fantasy, I knew there weren’t really any mermaids or cursed princesses (though perhaps there was the odd evil step-mother), yet there was some truth to be found within them. Whether it was their morals, representations of love or family dynamics, there was SOMETHING within them we could relate too. For me, nothing connected me more than the grand castles and palaces which formed the setting of these tales. Visiting heritage sites, complete with a sparkly pink hennin (no matter my age), was a physical way of connecting with the past. Whether ruins, grand stately homes or imposing forts, we are given a chance to literally step back in time and doing so only fuelled this passion for me.
So, I guess, that’s my history “origin story” and explains a lot about the history I’m interested in now (to me at least!). From castles and the more “elite” members of society, my interests broadened to people in general and their stories that, though may lack a dragon or two, was filled with as much heart and intrigue as any fairy tale I had read and it’s those stories I wish to tell through this little blog of mine.
I’d love to know about you and your own story? What was it that sparked that love of history that brought you to sites like this?
Sam x