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What the Victorians didn’t say
A family historian and former counsellor traces her Victorian grandfather’s emotional distance back through three generations of unspoken loss, poverty, and depression.
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The Voyage of the Shalimar, 1859: The Man Who Sailed Away and the Wife He Left Behind
On 12 September 1859, Thomas Alexander Kidd stood on Liverpool’s bustling docks with his family, ready to leave everything behind. The former merchant, magistrate and police commissioner had sold his comfortable life for steerage tickets to New Zealand. Beside him waited his wife, Mary Agnes, and their six children—Eliza, Georgina, Mary, Helen, Frances and young…
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The Recipe Book That Sustained a Life: Mary Allott’s Victorian Story of Abandonment, Scandal, and Survival
In 1860, a young woman with a newborn opened a blank notebook with an A-Z index and began to write. Mary Allott, née Hopkinson, was about twenty-four years old, a mother of two. A few days before she gave birth, her husband Charles had sailed for New Zealand, leaving their two-year-old son with his mother…
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12 Powerful Themes from ‘Yet’: A Story of Triumph over Childhood Separation, Trauma, and Disability
Discover Yet: A Story of Triumph over Childhood Separation, Trauma, and Disability—a deeply moving disability memoir exploring resilience, trauma recovery, and the power of the human spirit. Inspired by my father Harry’s experiences, this book traces his journey through childhood separation, disability, and social exclusion in post-war Britain. Blending social history with psychological insight, Yet…
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Separation and Strength
In July 1937, young Harry Drabble was hospitalised for tuberculosis, facing isolation and trauma. His experience epitomizes the emotional struggles of many children in 20th-century Britain separated from families during long treatments. Despite these challenges, Harry developed resilience, ultimately shaping his life positively and highlighting the importance of understanding and acknowledging such hidden histories.
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Celebrating Local and Community History Month, UK: Giving Voice to the Past
The inspiring story of the Drabble family of Sheffield, a working-class family whose experiences between the 1930s and 1950s illuminate the extraordinary resilience of ordinary lives.
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Forgotten history: A child’s experience of bovine tuberculosis
In 1937, two-and-a-half-year-old Harry Drabble was separated from his mother after being diagnosed with bovine tuberculosis, enduring traumatic hospital treatment for over two years. This isolation and neglect affected him emotionally and socially, mirroring the experiences of thousands of children during this dark period in British history.
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How Depression, Addiction & Trauma Echo Across Generations: Blending Family History, Psychology, and Science
Discover how depression, addiction, and trauma can echo through generations. By blending family history, psychology, and scientific insights like epigenetics, we reveal how ancestral struggles have shaped us—and how understanding our psychological inheritance empowers us to break unhealthy cycles and create a brighter legacy for future generations.
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You can leave a legacy: Sharing Your History When You Have No Direct Descendants
As a family historian, I know the deep sense of purpose that comes from uncovering the stories of our ancestors , but what happens when we have no direct descendants to pass our family history on to, or those we do have are not interested? This is a challenge faced by many, but there are…
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The possible psychological dangers of exploring our family history & how we can mitigate them
Researching our family history can be a life-changing, affirming experience and has the potential to improve our mental health, but it can also come with potential psychological risks. I am grateful to Emeritus psychology professor Susan M Moore research and her excellent articles Family History Research and Distressing Emotions and Ethical Dilemmas and Family History:…
