h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've just had an email from the head of publishing at the Imperial War Museum. This is very exciting.

More in next post...

I wrote to them a little while ago about my family's First World War letters. My grandfather was one of 6 brothers all involved in different theatres of the First World War: one was in the navy at Jutland, another in Mesopotamia (now Iraq) and the rest were scattered around France. They all wrote home to their mother, who unsurprisingly kept their letters, and in the course of time my mother inherited them.

In the 1970s she persuaded the Imperial War museum to copy and transcribe the letters, and she then edited selections from the transcriptions and turned them into a book.

My hope is to publish them between 2014 and 2018 in the form of a blog, each letter being published on the centenary of the day on which it was written, and each brother having their own log in. I would add photographs and other memorabilia as things went along.

I want to get started well ahead on this. You can set blog posts up to publish on particular days, and I'd like to get as much in and automated ahead of time as possible.

I would need the help of the museum in this, because they have (and may indeed own) the transcripts.

Anyhoo, they are interested but at this stage they are non-committal, as you would expect.

But I am still very excited about this.

Ben

you go girl, it does sound exciting

Sounds ! Make sure you let us all know the URL as and when it happens so we can add to our RSS feeds...

FB

... Or jack directly into our cerebral cortex', or some such future tech form 2014

Congratulations. It certainly sounds to be a very satisfying project. How else will you be publishing it? Just via the museum's outlets or maybe on the Radio 4 history programmes?

I suppose I really mean publicising rather than publishing - sorry.

What an excellent project! Good luck and keep us informed on progress.

MC

It is exciting.

I certainly plan to contact the publishers of the book and suggest that they re-publish. Who knows, the IWM may want to do that themselves.

I hadn't thought of R4, but that's a good idea too. Now, who do we know in the BBC....?

Or who can programme iPhone apps...?

I doubt things will move fast though, and that's ok with me.

B

Add me to the list of folks who'd like to link in to whatever format / media the project takes in its final incarnation.

Ben, I've been after my German relatives--off and on--for about five years to provide more background info on a story about my grandparents, Opa and Oma Schaffran. They were separated during WWII for several years, and were miraculously reunited in a neighboring country, walking on opposite sides of the street. Right now, I have to extrapolate and use quite a bit of poetic license to fill in the gaps. Wish they'd get over their embarrassment / reticence / fear and dig back into their collective memories to help flesh out the details.

B4iwhineonaboutsomethingihavenocontrolover

What a great project! I'll definitely be another regular reader.

Me too

I do believe my mother has my (paternal) grandfather's diary somewhere. At least I hope she hasn't lost it . It's from early 1900s when he was walking down through Germany, ending up in Austria before coming back, living of the odd job here and there as a blacksmith. Something relatively large numbers of Scandinavian craftsmen did during those years.

He and my grandmother spoke German pretty fluently and actually planned on living in Hamburg. But they were back in Copenhagen when WWI started and that pretty much defined that Copenhagen was where they settling...

-ing -> -ed

Yellow! Any progress on this, Mrs Zen?

B4thereR2manydaysthatslipby

Ben, that's really an exciting project! There will be an interesting historical perspective as well, on the centenary. WWI was called the "War to end all Wars" at the time, and as is evident by the designation alone, it wasn't.

The centenary will be talking about the horrors of that conflict, and your letters will illustrate that very well, from a personal aspect. Great project, I'm looking forward to reading the blog.

I'm still waiting on an answer from the Imperial War Museum. This year's been pretty much of a washout, what with the whole hootoo hing, and now my dissertation.

Very cool Ben. My mother has similar letters (I doubt they are as extensive as yours sound) from her uncles who fought and died in that war. They are full of censorship though with the censor having scored out place names and other (obviously unknown) stuff though.

How censored are these letters?

I've a letter written by my grandfather scanned in on my computer, written as he was part of the forces that overran Germany at the end of WWII. It doesn't say very much except that they seemed very obsessed with finding Lord Haw Haw - something you might not really expect now. Gives you a little perspective on what concerned the soldiers back then I guess.

Fascinating stuff anyway and good luck with the Blog, I'd be interested to read that as and when it happens...

Oooh! Ooooh! Oooooh!

They are getting the transcripts to me in the next two or three weeks.

Not clear if that is boxes of paper (typed in teh '70s) or scans.



(This is all I need - another HUGE project....)

Ben

There is something amazing about those real historical documents, Orcus, isn't there?

To my astonished shame, the husband of my mother's aunt presided over Lord Haw Haw's trial. I have never understood how an Irishman could be tried for treason against the British crown.

Ben

No idleness for you, Missy!

Ben! Idle! *wipes tears from her eyes*