Local History
A well written and illustrated local history is an asset to a community. It can serve many aims:
- Promote the town to visitors, and make their visits more enjoyable.
- Honour the town’s founders, their families and descendants
- Engender a sense of pride in the community
- Make a genuine contribution to the history of the region
At its best a local history is also a visitor guide relating the surviving remnants of the town to its past
With a background in history and travel writing I can combine the academic rigour required of a formal history with the story-telling skill needed to make it readable.
Travel Writing
I love travel and writing about places. Invariably it is the history of the places that draw me in, but painting a picture of the natural and built beauty of a destination, is also important, as is conveying the sense of an unfolding story.
Travel writing is often devalued by gushing, over-wrought description littered with cliche. They are false diamonds that rarely tempt a reader beyond the first paragraph. I believe the best travel stories are written like Monet painted, with deftly applied daubs of colour building an impression, atmosphere and sensory feel rather than reading like an AI-written travel brochure.
If you want travel stories that hit the spot, please let me know.