Robyn Floyd

"Wookey Hole and Great Great Great Aunt Matilda have the answers on how to entice young people to read history. Author Robyn Floyd has created a simple 'how-to' case study. The process of how to make an aspect of your family history of interest to younger members is shown in this book. Have some intriguing names like Wookey Hole ( which is explained as cave in Welsh and Anglo Saxon), food, games and where they lived and how 10 year old Matilda worked as a nurserymaid. (Not much time for games).

 

Visuals like census forms, posters, photos and a simple family tree, tell the story too. History is not just dates.The chapter on Spear's brickworks points how why making bricks mattered when migrants needed houses. Floyd reminds of the differences between between then and now with quirky details which
make it real for today's young people. So many ancestors were illiterate and signed forms with their cross.
There are endnotes and other hints about where you can find out more. And the fact that the limestone caves of Wookey Hole in Somerset are still a tourist attraction. Maybe this book will be available as a souvenir there, in the future?"