It’s the end of Day 2 and we are ‘over the hump’…. two down and just one to go. The planning takes forever and the event is over in a heartbeat. A different day today – aren’t they all? Began with what I thought was a joke, but it transpired it was not. In fact, no joke at all. A good friend and colleague at Devon Family History Society walked in this morning with a rather large dressing on his head, having fallen over in the bath (on soap of all things) and had to go to A&E to get it glued back together. Cracking start!
Having written yesterday about how little I had done in the way of talks, I decided today to push the boat out. ONE. Well, one and a bit. My own and the Celebrity talk from Alistair McGowan. I had not seen his episode of WDYTYA but his video clips and interview with Sarah Williams was very interesting, particularly the part about him having to traipse through long grass to locate his ancestor’s grave with the dangerous possibility of snakes – and poisonous ones at that.
Fish and chips for lunch – naughty but nice – and then a short time to digest it before delivering my own lecture at 1:15pm (without Christine Woodcock!). Shocking – she comes all the way from Canada and can’t be bothered to come (actually, bless her, she’s heard it before, so I will let her off).
Reading Industrial Communities lecture – from my perspective – went well, despite the challenges of the sound systems from SoG Studio 3 and SoG Studio 4. Beryl Evans – superb lecturer – but hearing every word of her talk on Welsh Ancestry during my own presentation was a little bit distracting. Note for the future: Don’t put two studios facing each other!
Much networking with The Surname Society members and other fellow genealogists from across the globe, the magic of the day was clearly the Ask the Experts. I only had two 20 minute sessions to cover at the end of the day and who would have expected one of them to have been born in the same maternity home as me.
Onward to a genie-dinner and a relaxing evening ahead. One more day to go – and the busiest day of them all, no doubt.
