Influences - what were yours?

 Not InfluenCERS.  Books, people,  experiences.  You all know about my love of history and archaeology.  Folklore, myths and legends too.  The school library was helpful with this as I can remember getting out books on Greek Mythology, and our English teacher introduced me to Georgette Heyer.  We also read Rosemary Sutcliffe's The Eagle of the Ninth, which I adored.   Our history teacher was pretty useless - after learning about the Romans, history seemed to go downhill for me as it was all names and dates and absolutely nothing real about the people who had made that history or lived through it.  It wasn't until I left school and was able to read about the things which interested me that I could broaden my knowledge.  Not so much about archaeology as our local library only seemed to have books about Egyptian archaeology, and that soon palled.

I wasn't interested in sewing, but someone I shared a house with was making a hexagon patchwork quilt and thus began my interest in patchwork, helped by my visiting the American Museum at Bath.  Some amazing American quilts there.

I was an absolutely HOPELESS cook to start with - mum was too, so I could hardly learn from her - yet my gran had been an amazing cook, but it never got passed on to mum.  Yet I learned, and found an interest in baking, and learned to make my own bread in 1980, after going to an evening at Eling Tide Mill at Totton, where we were shown how to make bread by hand.  Since my dad's grandfather had been a Journeyman Baker, perhaps that came down in my genes.  My cheese bread was always very well received.

When I discovered John Seymour's book about Self Sufficiency, that was my way forward too - though the idea of ever owning five acres to be self sufficient on seemed unlikely!  I read all the books by Derek Tangye too, about their idyllic life on a Cornish cliff, growing daffodils and flowers for posies which went to London, and growing tomatoes too in the summer months.  Then I discovered Elizabeth West's Hovel in the Hills.  I read that so many times. She wrote a second one, Kitchen in the Hills.  I remember seeing that in a bookshop window in Rhayader, whilst on a coach trip to the Elan Valley (from Salisbury, when I lived there) and spent my lunch money buying it - think it was about 12/6d (that would be 65 pence now). Her third book was Garden in the Hills. They lived in North Wales, halfway up a mountain, in a cottage which really, had been for summer living when pasturing sheep up on the mynydd.  It certainly didn't lend itself to living in the winter as it was incredibly damp, leaked and was cold and miserable.  They lived on so little money that at the end of winter sometimes they were reduced to living off the garden weeds to have food inside them.  Things were extremely . . . basic.  All the same, they were inspiring, and her husband Alan was very practical.  

With the coming of the internet, in the early years of this century (gosh, that sounds rather Victorian doesn't it?), television programmes such Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's wonderful River Cottage and Dick Strawbridge's It's Not Easy Being Green set up their own forums, which I joined.  There were programmes called Victorian Kitchen, the Victorian Farm, Edwardian Farm etc.  Have those on DVD and watch regularly.  My favourite was probably Tales from the Green Valley.  All so very "me".

I also discovered and joined a private online forum with mostly ladies who gardened, made bread, made soap, made jams, chutneys, jellies, cooked from scratch, baked, embroidered, made patchwork . . .  you get the picture.  They were a lovely bunch and I learned so much.  Sadly, these things never last forever.

When I met Keith, we were both interested in antiques, which my dad loved too - still remember watching Going for a Song with him.  We would look in Antique Shop windows, but because we didn't have any money to purchase anything, didn't want to waste the shop-owners' time by going inside "just to look". Keith and I went to Dorchester on a day out when we were first together and saw a sign for an auction at Stinsford School, right beside the beautiful church where Thomas Hardy's heart and his family members are buried.  Of course, we went, and the rest is history!

We ended up in Wales because I had a penpal here back in the early 1970s and holidayed at Ferryside, Carmarthenshire.  When we were househunting and the prices in the West Country (Devon) were going up literally week on week, I said why don't we look in Carmarthenshire?  Well, we did and Wales is still my home.

My degree course was a huge influence on my interest in archaeology and my main passion for Prehistory developed into a deep interest in the Pictish symbol stones, the subject of my Dissertation.  From this has grown my interest in Early Christian Monuments, and we have plenty of those all over Wales.  This has led to bothering Churches as that is where most of them are found :)

So, I would love to know what turned you into the person you are today, and what your passions and interests are.

P.S.  I did a quick shop this morning as I needed food for when Tam, Jon & Rosie are here Sunday - Tuesday, and picked up the latest Today's Quilter magazine.  I was half-tempted but put my glasses on to read the price.  £8.99!  I don't think so!

P.P.S.  Have Beef Goulash in the oven (very 70s), and am sat down with my embroidery watching, wait for it, Tales of the Green Valley, on Youtube.  Sat watching the rain outside and trees blowing around a bit.