A good example of a ‘coincidence’ happened to me this week.
It began when for no obvious reason I started to think about The Children of the New Forest, a children’s classic written by Captain Frederick Marryat in 1847; it was one of the first historical novels written for young people.
Such books never gripped me the way that fantasy and science fiction did, but I learned a lot of history from reading them. I had not read, seen or even thought about this book since I was at school, but suddenly some fragments of dialogue popped up in my mind:
“Levelers, to horse!” and, “What’s a Leveler?” (Levelers or Levellers were radical supporters of the Parliamentarian cause at the time of the Civil War). I tried to remember what I had learned about them from this book at the time.
I had also decided recently to learn more about the Huguenots, persecuted French Protestants many of whom took refuge in England.
I went out for the day to a town of great historic interest but decided to cut my losses and come back early as it was a bit of a disappointment.
There were some people on the train on the way home whose conversation was very loud and very boring.
It began when for no obvious reason I started to think about The Children of the New Forest, a children’s classic written by Captain Frederick Marryat in 1847; it was one of the first historical novels written for young people.
Such books never gripped me the way that fantasy and science fiction did, but I learned a lot of history from reading them. I had not read, seen or even thought about this book since I was at school, but suddenly some fragments of dialogue popped up in my mind:
“Levelers, to horse!” and, “What’s a Leveler?” (Levelers or Levellers were radical supporters of the Parliamentarian cause at the time of the Civil War). I tried to remember what I had learned about them from this book at the time.
I had also decided recently to learn more about the Huguenots, persecuted French Protestants many of whom took refuge in England.
I went out for the day to a town of great historic interest but decided to cut my losses and come back early as it was a bit of a disappointment.
There were some people on the train on the way home whose conversation was very loud and very boring.
