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| Col du Rieutort in snow |
'...Messandrierre, which was published on December 8th, is set in the recent past and begins in September 2007 in the Cévennes in France - a place I have visited often. Whilst I was there in September 2007 it began to snow overnight and the scenery the next morning was stunning. That was when I had the idea for a body being buried and the evidence of the grave being hidden because of the snow. It's a description of the burial, the snow and the mountains that begins my story.'
But then, the questions got more difficult and moved on to ‘rewriting’ history and what I would change if I could...
'Another big question! It would be very easy and noble to say I would ensure the
Franco-Prussian war never took place or that slavery never happened or any
number of other things. But the world
is the place that it is precisely because of those terrible things and the
lessons learned as a result. If they
were changed, we may not be who and what we are now. So, my choice would be to
change a question on the 1841 census.
On that census the enumerators only had to record whether an individual
was born in the county in which they were living at the time. For one of my ancestors - a potboy in a Coffee House in Southwark, London - the answer is 'No'. So, I will never know who he was or where he
was born and therefore who the rest of his family were. A very large and solid family history brick
wall!!
And there's more so scoot on over to Jennifer's blog (link below) to find out what else we discussed.
