Edit, eidt, edit…

Today I completed the FIRST read through of my 100,000-word biography of Henry Coombe-Tennant of Neath. It has taken me a couple of weeks at a leisurely pace and it is surprising how many typos you pick up and just how often you see a word that you immediately want to change for a different one!

I’ve noted all the changes in a printed copy of the text and I next have to make the changes in the Word document. That won’t take me too long…

After that, it’s a matter of checking that my quotes are accurate, plus a bit of fact and date checking. Beyond that, I have to complete the footnotes, sort out the index and decide which illustration goes where!

So, it’s a lot of work but I am well within my target. At the end of it all, my editor at Y Lolfa will give the work a professional edit and we’ll be ready to go to publication. That will be in 2021, Covid-19 virus permitting. The end of a long but very enjoyable road for me. But a true-life story of a remarkable man and his equally remarkable family that really needs to be out there. I can’t wait…

Dusty Corners…

One of the joys (for me, anyway) of researching and then writing on local history topics (for publication, hopefully) is treading a path that has not been heavily used. There are numerous books on well-mined subjects – think The Zulu War, The Somme and Dunkirk for starters.

Nothing wrong with that, of course; I own many books by different authors that cover the same topic. There is usually something new or a little different to say but, after a while, you do get a bit blase when the umpteenth book on e.g. The Somme, hits the shelves.

My joy is in looking into the dusty corners of local history and turning up interesting facts that are, nevertheless, a little off-centre. The chap I am researching now is an excellent example. He was an academic who spurned academia and joined the Welsh Guards. He helped bring the Dutch Queen to safety in the UK in 1940. He then embarked for France but ended up at Boulogne rather than Dunkirk. Captured by the Germans he escaped from Warburg rather than Colditz. And got home safely. He was later parachuted behind German lines in the Ardennes to help the French Resistance. He joined the intelligence service and knew Kim Philby and others from the world of espionage. And then he became a monk.

Remarkable facts, a great story, a very accomplished and interesting man. I’m still digging…