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…

Gathering the info…

I’ve just ‘opened’ my FIFTH lever-arch file of copies of original material relating to Henry Coombe-Tennant of Cadoxton, Neath.

There are still a lot more documents to examine and – once that is complete – I need to work through the (probably) 2,000+ pages and index them into themes so that I can bring related info into the correct place in my writing of Henry’s biography (publisher to be sought further down the path…)

I think this is the biggest writing enterprise I have ever undertaken! Well worth the effort, though. A remarkable man and an amazing life. He deserves to be better known.

 

Wow! Deep stuff…

Henry Coombe-Tennant gained a double first degree at Cambridge University in moral sciences. My research into his life is ongoing but he seems to have been greatly impressed by the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein, probably the leading philosopher of the 20th century.

I’ve not yet established whether Henry actually met Wittgenstein at Cambridge (I suspect he did) but I thought I’d have a look at what ‘all the fuss was about’…I downloaded Mr W’s ‘Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus’, his most important work.

After a few pages, my head was hurting…it is DEEP stuff. But Henry was a very bright chap and probably lapped it up (unlike me!)

More to come as my research on Henry continues.

A Slight Pause…

… in my research into the life of Henry Coombe-Tennant

Henry Coombe-Tennant

My researches into Major Coombe-Tennant (Welsh Guards and SOE in World War Two) are ongoing. A VERY interesting chap and a largely forgotten Neath hero. I hope to get him into the spotlight (with a publication) in due course. Trust me: he deserves it…a remarkable man.

Works in Progress…

My 7,000-word write-up on Christopher Tennant is more or less complete and, all being well, will appear in the 2018 edition of the Neath Antiquarian. I now need to write up an account of Christopher’s brother Henry’s efforts in WWII and beyond.

After that, I have some work to do on crime in mid-Victorian Swansea…