Last Monday, I spent my afternoon at home talking fixedly to a lamp in the corner of my living room, while a friendly journalist perched on the settee next to me with a camera hovering a few inches from my face. Why? Well, technically it all started in 1769. But this bit of the story starts in August. This picture above is a little clue! In my family, there has been a battered, brown leather-bound book wrapped in paper in a desk drawer for as long as anyone can remember - since at least the 1830s, we’ve figured out. It’s the 1769 expenses book of James Farrer, who was the last Lord of the Manor in Saddleworth, and a Barnburgh resident (like me!). It records his cash flow, his appointments, how he spent his leisure time, where he dined and supped. There are still a few gaps but with a lot (lot, lot, lot) of research we’ve managed to build up quite a rich picture of James’ life, and in August we decided to take it digital! Over on the Instagram and Twitter pages we’ve been posting “on this day” snippets from the diary itself, as well as snaps of the Barnburgh countryside as James would have known it, and even the odd surviving portrait of his very closest (and grandest!) friends. A few weeks ago, a journalist from the Doncaster Free Press got in touch and - kindly telling me how much she’d been enjoying the project - asked to write an article about the diary, and shoot a video with me! We had a slightly faltering start. The journalist, Laura, asked me the simplest question of the lot - “who is this Georgian gentleman?” - in response to which I smiled a bit madly at the lamp, got every word of the ensuing sentence wrong, and ground to a halt. But after a warm-up (and the all-important tea and biscuits) we got going properly, and Laura’s insightful questions, some extremely swish editing, and my ability to rabbit on for a very long time about things I find interesting have resulted in a fantastic video, and it’s now LIVE - you can view it on the Isabel Parkinson Facebook page! There's much, much more information about James Farrer on the diary's Instagram and Twitter pages, and a lot more coming! We've already met his wife, his seven children (!), seen his house, and accompanied him on his summer holiday; shortly we'll meet his dogs, and over the next few months he'll be telling us about kidney stones, an amusing incident on a shooting trip, and a new addition to the family...
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The official website of Yorkshire-made, Oxford-based writer Isabel Parkinson. Want fewer words and more pics? Follow me on Instagram!
(Header Photo: Radcliffe Camera, Oxford - Isabel Parkinson 2016)
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