Tall Tales or Real History?
Andy Stuart
- Regions:
- South East, East of England, London, East Midlands, Cumbria, Lancashire, Durham, Tyne & Wear, Northumberland
- Notice Period:
- Emergency (maybe less than one week's notice)
- Type:
- Author / Hobby
- Fee:
- Expensed
- Category:
- History
- Updated:
- 16th December 2024
- Tagged:
- Military History | Family History | Ww1 | Geneaology
We all have family stories that permeate generations and the truth or otherwise gets lost in time. But what if they're true? 'I dropped a jar of mercury at the chemist shop.' - Really Grandad? 'We found a wine cellar. Some bottles had gold nuggets floating in them.' - After you'd drunk a few? 'Shamrock cap-badged Russians.' A bit far from home then. 'We stole a train to escape the Bolsheviks'. - Was it the 11.15 from Omsk? In this talk I look into some of these 'Tall Tales' I've lived with and how they look when compared to real history. I hope to give listeners pointers to where they can look into their own family tales.
Views: 318 | Enquiries: 3About Andy Stuart
With a collection of anecdotes from Arthur Walton, my Grandad, filed in my head, I knew one day I needed to record them in some way. He died in 1972 (I was 11). Lockdowns created the time to start the project. I started writing without knowing what would emerge and without the intention of a book for publication. I had a beginning, August 1914, and an end, 1920, which gave me a timeline. I needed to get the story from a. to b.
The outcome evolved into far too many words for one book; detailed research into a forgotten part of British History with 'Churchill's Intervention', and a fascination with the Allied involvement in the Russian civil war.
My dad was a professional soldier and I was too; in the Royal Artillery, like my Grandad. I left the army in 1987 to work in financial markets for 25 years, travelling extensively to the great city's of the world. After school in South East London, I studied Economics at Warwick University, and later for a Master of Business Administration. After a City career in 2006, I co-founded a technology development business.
Having disliked composing imaginative stories at school, I now find inspiration everywhere. My writing weaves fiction within historical facts of real events throughout WW1 and during a period largely forgotten by British historians; our involvement in the Russian Civil War.
Groups I've presented to and are scheduled include The British Legion, Western Front Association, Veterans, Rotary and Probus clubs, Writers groups and U3A. https://www.andystuart.net/
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