The pleasures and perils of on-line research

Digitised material is so readily available it can be tempting to rely on it. MMMH! But what about those small mundane details in letters and lists and scraps of paper and on the back of photos which are in archives in boxes down in a dungeon somewhere. Drawing the line between useless minutiae and that one illuminating detail you find as an archive ferret will be a constant problem. Having to physically go to archives means an airfare, place to stay and time to hunt, none of the results of which might end up in written words. Definitely will not be able to go to the UK to chase up Ridley's stay before being sent as reinforcments to France in WW1.  Google Street view lets me look at places he stayed, in a generic not specific sense.  There is a letter in his WW1 records from Lucy  Godfery-Faussett seeking information about his whereabouts and was he well. Lucy is listed as living at Ivy House in Heytesbury and I can look at that house, on the corner of a street in a  pretty English village in Wiltshire. Salisbury Plain, long associated with the army, was a place where many WW1 soldiers trained or were in camp waiting to go to France.

Ivy House, Heytesbury 

Description: Ivy House
Grade: II
Date Listed: 11 September 1968
English Heritage Building ID: 313286
OS Grid Reference: ST9253142589
OS Grid Coordinates: 392531, 142589
Latitude/Longitude: 51.1825, -2.1082

Location: Tytherington Road, Heytesbury, Wiltshire BA12 0ED
Locality: Heytesbury
Local Authority: Wiltshire
County: Wiltshire
Country: England
Postcode: BA12 0ED

HEYTESBURY HIGH STREET
ST 92 SW
(south side)
9/65
Ivy House
11.9.68
GV II

House at end of row. c.1800. Flemish bond brick, mansard tiled
roof, brick stacks. Two storey, 4-windowed; sashes. Four-
panelled door with arched panels in case with moulded pilasters and
segmental-arched hood to left of centre, 12-pane sash to left and
two 12-pane sashes to right; all with segmental brick heads and
reveals. First floor has four segmental-headed sashes. Right
return has 1-light casement to attic. Rear has margin-pane French
windows and 2-light and 3-light casements. Attached to rear is mid
C19 two storey wing in brick and rubble stone, 4-pane sash and 2-
light casements, tiled roof with ceramic ridge cresting.
Interior has stairs with stick balusters and turned newel, 4-
panelled and 6-panelled doors with moulded architraves, plain
marble fireplace surround and shutters to windows.


Listing NGR: ST9253142589   Source: English Heritage

Listed building text is © Crown Copyright.

Can't save the picture to this post and anyway - is the approximate address only?

Where do you start when you aren't a professional writer?



Colac Hotel Port Adelaide

I mean- so much material in hand, so much to discover and so much to create, then shape it into a good read. Some of it will be profound, some will be mundane but it has to be put together in a way which will hold a reader's attention and interest.  Put in a picture - that's a good start.

Ridley's office at Irwin House

Why would I write a book about Ridley? From what I know of him and can deduce from his life choices he was energetic, a pious Anglican, adventurous, made friends readily, intelligent but probably not a deeply critical thinker, attracted people but wasn't "charismatic".

I have to find out if he was not only born in a pub but lived there for the early part of his life, and did that have any effect on his upbringing, his life and his attitudes? His father was listened as "Licenced Victualler" but was that of the Colac Hotel?  Easy to assume as Ridley was born there, is it the truth?  The Colac is right on the docks and newspaper reports from the late 1890's and early 20th Century are pretty colourful - fights, murders, and shock horror playing Euchre on a Sunday!! Sailing ships, and sailors in a port well-supplied with hotels, what a mix.

Arthur Ridley Reed 1896 -1942

ARTHUR RIDLEY REED IN 1927 at Irwin House WA

Born in the Colac pub on the docks of Port Adelaide South Australia before Australia federated, went to WW1, to "Irwin House" near Dongara WA in 1926, back to SA sometime after 1927, then off to "New Britain" in 1933. In Rabaul in 1942 when the Japanese invaded, listed as one of the civilians who died on the "Montevideo Maru" in July 1942. This man lived through many of the big events in Australia's history.  He was the friend of Victor Lindsay Clyde Brougham, my Father-in-Law. Over however much time it takes I would like to tell his story, sometimes as a biography, sometimes  as a history-based fiction as close as I can be to "truth".