Making connections

After an eventful night with a local history society, Alan Crosby celebrates some unexpected links to the past.

Wednesday 3 January 2010
Alan Crosby, editor of The Local Historian
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Last night I gave a talk to a local history society a few miles from home. I always enjoyed talking to societies and this was no exception – although the heating had gone haywire and to begin with we shivered and at the end we were definitely glowing with the radiant heat! It was the eleventh time I had visited that society in roughly twenty years (an alarming thought) and so there were familiar faces in the audience, and that added to the convivial atmosphere.

The subject was ‘Crime in 17th century Lancashire’. When I give talks on that subject I try to choose local examples to illustrate the theme. I look carefully at the audience when I’m reading out extracts from court records, because quite often the surnames of ne’er-do-wells 350 years ago are shared by some of those sitting in front of me. When this happens, I can sometimes detect an expression of amusement, combined with slight discomfort, crossing the face of somebody who recognises an ancestor.

Perhaps I inadvertently caused the most embarrassment when, some years ago, I talked to a Women’s Institute about naughty women in the 17th century (the local good-time girls, those described in the contemporary document as ‘of lewd and lascivious behaviour’) and one of the members present recognised a forebear! Not good on the family tree – or perhaps, secretly, quite proud of her?

Last night the meeting ended with tea and biscuits (excellent tea, strong and only a little milk, exactly as I like it) and I chatted to friends. The conversation moved from the local history of the area to the experiences of one of them, who had been a secretary in the British Embassy in Budapest in the Communist era. Very revealing of a different sort of history – hiding in a cupboard for important meetings, to try to escape the bugging devices and secret cameras. Who said local history was parochial? Then out into the thick frost, with much satisfaction – a very enjoyable evening, heartening feedback, and a little bit of Cold War history for good measure.