Edward Thompson: Wartime C.M.E. Discussion

If only I were retired

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A word to the wise ..... Be careful what you wish for!

 

It’s been brought to my attention that there’s some debate going on The LNER Society’s Facebook page regarding the book, and the veracity/accuracy of the books contents.

Since the admin of that page prefer to not engage with me (or allow me a right of reply) the best I can do is offer up, as before, copies of my research data towards helping a better understanding of how I’ve arrived at the conclusions I have. I will however clarify a few points here.

I have been in contact with Peter Townend during the writing of the book and he is thanked personally for his help in writing this volume.

I didn’t disregard JF Harrison. I disregarded Colonel Roger’s book because it contains many factual inaccuracies, does not cite anyone directly nor provide any primary evidence for the assertions made. If JF Harrison’s primary writings come to light, that’s a different matter, but secondary evidence without citations do not hold the same weight as primary evidence.

The Use of Engine Power document is available as a spreadsheet and evidences actual mileages/days in or out of works and at sheds. I don’t use stats in isolation, and this is explained very clearly in the books appendices.

 

If it's any consolation, I can find no sign of that thread on that group so it's either died a death and been overtaken by hundreds of posts since or possibly been removed. It certainly isn't coming up on my feed from that page.

 

My apologies, I meant to respond earlier than this. It is some comfort, but still hugely frustrating given the work involved that some people will decry my work and yet declare “I won’t read it” - peculiar!

 

Nowt queerer than folk!

Rest assured this poster enjoyed your work, and given that you have used official documents will point future detractors, of Thompson, in your (or should that be your book's?) direction.

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And what, we may wonder, have such embittered souls contributed to the sum total of human knowledge and happiness?

The TV series Good Omens had much the same problem .... with religious fundamentalists, who'd evidently not watched the (scarcely offensive but IMO very funny) series, organising a complaining campaign to the wrong production company and wrong broadcaster, thereby rather shooting their own fox in the process. Roll on series two!

You might recall Brendan Behan's comment about such folk. "Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how it's done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves."

 

It reminds me of the the late Johnny Speight - the creator of Alf Garnett - who once declared that "if we didn't have blacks we'd have to invent them" then wrote a play in the 1970s to prove it.

 

So in response to an email today, and to also provide a heads up: my editor is investigating a potential book signing to coincide with my interview on the Thompson book with the MRC of London at the Alexandra Palace.

If we are not able to do an official book signing, you are more than welcome (if you wish!) to bring your unsigned books along and I would be happy to sign them after I give my interview on the Sunday (20th March 2022).

 

Since series one was based on a book will have to wait for a sequel to be written ( ahem, gameofthrones !) Say What ?

 

(Control thread drifting tendencies now Howard .... even when you agree )

 

And we now have our first printed review of the book, in one of the railway mags. Hornby Magazine first off the mark with a lovely review: https://www.keymodelworld.com/article/edward-thompson-wartime-cme-book-review

“Thorough and thought provoking”.

Very happy with that!

 

Sadly it’s pay-walled Simon.

 

I can't for copyright reasons reproduce it publicly, however suffice to say it has been a welcome boost to my confidence in the book and my work behind it.

Next stop - a Gresley book draft...

 

A Gresley book will be good....but I will be waiting for your Bulleid book...pretty please!

 

How are sales of the book doing Simon ? IIRC it was a 1000 print run.

 

I will have to check with my publisher but I know sales have been generally good, it remains in Strathwood's best selling books section at the mo (currently sits in sixth place in the steam category).

 

Is their anything to add on Bulleid that his son didn’t include in the biography he wrote? After all, he had access to the man himself and others who were there at the time.

 

Yes. Statistics on rolling stock, renewals, designs. Board minutes. Reports from the Southern Railway including maintenance, accidents. Other new books and evidence coming to light since he wrote that book, including the whole Leader event.

I find it utterly peculiar that railway history is thought of as static, having already been written, and clearly thought of as being written proficiently first time around. I hope it doesn't do that - where my work and that which comes after it can also be scrutinised and critiqued, and corrected where new evidence casts fresh light on events.

Railway history in this country hasn't been taken as seriously in the history field as other niche topics - I am beginning to understand why. The whole approach to it is not as nuanced nor as wide ranging as it should be.

 

Quite. I'd be surprised if a new volume (and Kevin Robertson has now produced three on just Leader) didn't both tell some familiar stories, as well as shed new light on others, and tell some others for the first time. Some of this will come from genuinely newly found evidence, some will be finding information in previously undug sources, yet more will be a different eye on the same events. Every historian, every biographer, has their own set of biases, causing them to favour some information and not others. That's not a criticism of his son's biography, but a reflection of reality.

Moving off the subject of railway history, to something less emotionally contentious. Paul Brickhill's book on the Dams raid was excellent, but of it's time. More recent historians have dug out more information about the raid, deepening and broadening understanding of it. The result is a more informed understanding of what happened, giving us a little more history and a little less myth.

I have also just turned to look at the shelves behind me. I can see numerous examples where I've got multiple histories and biographies covering the same ground, but coming up with genuinely different views of the same base topics. At the risk of going full Godwin, I notice that I have 4 separate biographies on Hitler, plus 2 parallel biographies of Hitler and Stalin on those shelves. I had thought that Ian Kershaw had covered it all with his biography from 20 years or so back, but Volker Ullrich (in another massive two volume set) proved me badly wrong. When I was at school, we were told that Alan Bullock's biography (from 1961) was definitive - it's now an important part of the literature, but largely superseded.