The Patriarch Diaries

For those of you who do not follow my other blog, I have recently finished The Talisman series, an eight-book, YA Fantasy/Adventure that explores the history of Britain through the eyes of two twenty-first-century boys who just happen to have the same names as my grandsons.

It’s a decent series, good, solid writing, even if I have to say so myself (which, yeah, I kinda do) and you could do worse than giving it a try. I mean, it’s only £0.99 on Kindle so, really, you don’t have much to lose.

But that’s not what I want to talk about.

With that project over, I am now full-time on The Patriarch Diaries, which does not mean this blog but, rather, the book I have always planned to create from this blog.

The book is to be a combination of family history, legends, general reminiscence, and as much of my life story as I can pack in. The General Reminiscence section is pretty much what this blog is made up of.

But that’s not what I want to talk about.

One of the first tasks I undertook was a side-project involving Ben Phelper’s Kriegie Memories, a book he wrote about his experiences in Stalag 17B during WWII. It’s an amazing book, recounting a story that should not be forgotten, and I wanted my Grandkids to have the opportunity to read it.

My oft-repeated quip about this (and other ramblings down memory lane) is that my grandchildren regard those stories the same way I regard stories about the Victorian Era. Ha Ha. Except it’s true.

World War Two began fifteen years before I was born. I grew around people—young men in their 40s and 50s—who fought in that war and had first-hand knowledge of it. But for my G-kids, that was 70 years before they were born, and if you go back 70 years before I was born, you hit the Victorian Era.

_{WWII: just as relevant to my Grandchildren as the Victorian Era is to me.}

Granted, I knew people who were born in the Victorian Era, and who fought in World War One (not so uncommon when I was growing up) but they were old people, with stories I didn’t, at the time (and I could kick myself now) find relevant.

_{How people dressed when my grandchildren were born.}

_{How they dressed 70 years before they were born.}

And so, The Patriarch Diaries, my attempt to record as much about my life, my family history, and what life was like in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s as I can, and present it to my grandchildren in the knowledge that it will be totally irrelevant to them.

_{How people dressed 70 years before I was born.}

But someday, when they’re my age, they may feel differently, and at least they will have the chance to find answers to the questions I wish I’d had the foresight to ask my grandparents when I was young.