Your family in print

[Janik]

Apparently a book is currently being written based around a correspondence between one of my relatives and a random other person. What happened was that my relative, who lived in Czechoslovakia, wrote a letter to The Times criticising their coverage of his country. Not because he felt it was inaccurate, but because it was too accurate and would be used as propaganda by the Communist government to increase repression. Or similar, this is a repeat of a brief paraphrase of the argument.

This letter prompted a British man who was a member of the British Communist Party to send a letter directly to my relative, debating/disagreeing with his views. That sparked an exchange of letters that lasted until British Communist died, which was ~25 years later. The letters were mostly political discussions, taking place between a jaded and disillusioned socialist living in a Communist country and a still believing Communist living in a Capitalist country (random piece of one letter is apparently criticism of a British Labour government for being so capitalist and right-wing!)

Why is this now being published? The son of the British Communist recently happened upon the letters, which would be really fascinating if one was a professional historian. Which was handy...

I know about it, and the content of some of the letters, as my Mum has been sent a draft so she can give family approval on the use of the letters from our dead relative.

I'm definitely looking forward to reading this.

[Bored Of Education]

Your family in print

I can't leave Janik's thread tottering over into the abyss of nilness without contributing this bit of historical literary family appearances even if it is the sublime to the parochial. My dad and mum Brian and Hilary Thomas mentioned in the history of Porthcawl RFC book.

[Various Artist]

Your family in print

Moving from the sublime to the parochial to the macabre, one of my relatives crops up in historian Ben Macintyre's 2010 book Operation Mincemeat, about the notorious plot that changed the course of the Second World War by dropping a dead vagrant's 'drowned' body loaded with false military documentation off the coast of Spain, which successfully convinced the Nazis the Allies were planning an invasion of Sardinia – crucially deflecting their attention and resources away from the true target of Sicily. The story was famously filmed in 1956 as The Man Who Never Was.
I never knew about the family connection until reading my great-uncle's obituary a few years ago – as it turned out, he was the undertaker who surreptitiously procured the necessary appropriate corpse, on the orders of the splendidly-named St Pancras coroner Sir Bentley Purchase, and ferried it across London in the dead of night, having (as I recall) had to thaw its frozen feet with a heater in order to bend its 6' 4" frame into a coffin first.

[SouthdownRebel]

Your family in print

Sir Bentley Purchase...didn't he play for Framley Imaginaire back in the day?

I don't have any such familial claims to fame, but I must say the account of Janik's relative does sound fascinating.

[Southport Zeb]

Your family in print

My great (great?) grandfather wrote a book that I'm sure you've all read. I refer of course to The History of Artesian Wells in Edinburgh. My mum has a copy somewhere which contains a photo him in a suit standing next to some sort of drilling equipment.

[Duncan Gardner]

Your family in print

Cousin Jim's historical novel Reluctant Rapparee* is out and it's a goer. Three murders in chapter one and a couple of main characters have hipster beards, even though it's set in 1750.

* Highwayman

https://excaliburpress.wordpress.com/2015/12/05/the-reluctant-rapparee/

[Amor de Cosmos]

Your family in print

I've mentioned "Uncle Bob the Spy" here a few times. Here's a partial account of his most public moment:

"12:00pm, GERMAN EMBASSY, CARLTON HOUSE TERRACE

Robert Dunbar and Dr Kordt have reached an impasse over who should or should not receive diplomatic status and protection from among London’s German colony. They decide to call a halt and Dunbar prepares to to return to the Foreign Office. As he leaves he wishes Kordt ‘goodbye’, but remembers just in time not to add ‘good luck’. The Chargé d’Affaires likewise wishes the British diplomat a plain ‘goodbye’. Dunbar retraces his steps back to his office. There he sets about working on the details of the German diplomats’ departure from London."

Outbreak: 1939: The World Goes to War by Terry Charman

[HORN]

Your family in print

This web link tells you all you need to know about my relative.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/3581106/Hes-just-sex-mad-and-paints-women.html