October 2022

All that counts is lifetimes is a maxim I appreciate ever more deeply as I travel through life.

Janet Irene Fulford (10 September 1934 to 21 October 2020) conducted one of the most admirable lives I’ve personally borne witness to during my time on Earth. A dear friend of my family, particularly my Mum and Dad, she was a mentor and exemplar to me and my sister, Ruth.

An architect by profession, Janet was an active participant in local government and politics in her home town, Colchester. She served as the town’s mayor, and made numerous contributions to its civic and public life. Read more »

April 2021

Becky Green has died.

The Gang

Becky and I were both members of the Durham University class of 1992-1995. She studied English. I, Physics. Our wide band of pals was initially brought together via the charisma and energy of our mutual friend, John Devlin. He ran a Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) group, of which I was a member and to which Becky latterly attached herself. Read more »

July 2018

One hundred and forty-three years of information about my family were contained in the Ancestor Chest. That’s the time between the oldest unambiguously dated document it contained (1867) and the year it ceased to act as clearing house for precious but hard-to-file stuff (2010).

During that period, there were ups and downs. The captured episodes most obviously intriguing to posterity were the international adventures: Read more »

April 2018

Using a chest of photos of dead relatives to peer into the recent past was proving insightful. Following my initial one-box, 698-image investigation of the Ancestor Chest, I had a detailed sense of the pictures it contained.
Read more »

March 2018

My mother once told me that you’re not a proper adult until both your parents are dead. Thanks, Mum. Could have done without that particular life opinion. Some years later, on Radio 4, someone wise stated that – definitionally – you’re an adult when you stop obsessing about your own life and look-up to the ones around you. Still working on that.  Read more »