About the author Diane Lindsay discovered her twin passions of family history and English (and her sense of humour) while training as a teacher and bringing up three small children in the 1970s. She’s a writer and local and family historian and, although retired, still teaches anything to anyone who will listen.
For me, there’s nothing nicer than sharing research. Although, after so many years, there’s so much it can be daunting to sort out the relevant strands so that interested enquirers don’t get burdened with reams of information that isn’t needed. Quite apart from the buzz, I love the chance to extol the virtues of our lovely hobby. I know some researchers begrudge sharing the fruits of lengthy and sometimes expensive labour but that really doesn’t bother me at all. Anything, in this slightly dystopian old world we find ourselves in of late, that adds to goodwill and extends the family of Man (and woman and everyone in between) is fine and dandy by me.
Having said that, preparing data for sharing drives me up the wall. It makes me want to send myself to bed with no supper. It mutters ‘dilatory’ in my mind, like my mother trying to tidy my book-stuffed bedroom of aeons ago. It suggests I flog myself with a bramble switch as Basil Fawlty did to his car in that famously manic 1970s TV series. After the first excitement of knowing I have information somebody needs, the search to find it usually reveals a missing source, or a ‘lost’ document on my overstuffed computer. Or the item in question is somewhere in a box file, possibly still awaiting digital data entry; it exists in my photographic memory, that recalls everything except where I stashed what I need this minute. I can ‘see’ the very notebook, printout, photocopy clearly but not in situ. I even look behind the radiator.