Tall Tales or Real History?

Andy Stuart


Regions:
South East, East of England, London, East Midlands, Cumbria, Lancashire
Notice Period:
Emergency (maybe less than one week's notice)
Type:
Author / Hobby
Fee:
Expensed
Category:
History
Updated:
26th October 2024

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? 'We found a wine cellar. Some bottles had gold nuggets floating in them.' - Of course they did. 'We stole a train to escape the Bolsheviks'. - Was it the 11.15 from Omsk Grandad? 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: 54 | Enquiries: 1

About 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), and the bizarre closure of the world in 2020 with Covid created the time. 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 Veterans, Rotary and Probus clubs, Writers groups and U3A. https://www.andystuart.net/


Send a message to the speaker

If you are interested in this talk and wish to contact the speaker, please complete the following form:

 
Please provide your contact name
 
Please provide the name of your group
 
Your phone number so that the speaker can contact you
 
Your email address so that the speaker can contact you
 
Give details about the event, time of day and location
Prove you are human please.
Use the slider to drag the puzzle so that the top and bottom are aligned , or use an alternate text based challenge by clicking here.
The list bread, white, elephant, prison, mosquito and thumb contains how many colours?
 

Site Search

Search across all speakers, topics and tags. Put your search term in the box and press enter or hit search

Use quotes around exact multiple word searches, eg "winston churchill".