I used to have a little blog called Keeper of the Snails, but it’s been such a long time since I updated it I thought I might as well start another.
So, I thought I’d give this new blog a theme: ‘Bringing History to Life’, which is what I aim to do in life, and at the moment I am researching the British Civil Wars of the seventeenth century.
I have discovered there are one or two books on this and so, of course, I have ended up finding I ‘need’ all of them and in consequence my TBR pile has got a little out of hand. In fact, it has got so out of hand that I’ve found myself reading some books twice by mistake, hence the orange sticker to remind myself I’ve read them. Today the book is ‘Women All On Fire’ which is a quote from the women of Chester (which is where I live – hurrah!) as they discovered, not for the first time, that if you want a job done well do it yourself. So they did.
When Chester’s Medieval wall was breached by Parliamentarian cannon-fire they patched it up with everything they could lay their hands on: bedding, mud, bits of old sacking, that sort of thing. Strangely, it seemed to do the job and the Parliamentarians were held back.
Later the breach was patched-up with more substantial material, but you can still see the place where the wall was breached even today.
The council has illustrated this with a rather good installation.
Clare Dudman 