Russell

What could be more Shire? I own an allotment, a push mower, two wind-up clocks, a cane, a pocket watch, a fedora, and regularly use a water closet. Also, though I did not realise it until recently, the oldest and most dog-eared book on my shelf was published by Shire. Discovering Timber-framed Buildings lit up my life as an eight-year-old when I persuaded my mother to buy it for me. I loved timber-framed buildings already, but the exploded diagrams were absolutely fascinating to me and actually inspired me to use the book as the basis for a school topic. No other book has survived so many years on my shelves!

After timber-framed buildings and a brief interest in railways, I immersed myself in the world of the Titanic and other superliners, developing modelling skills with Corn Flakes packets and then proper art card.

In my late teens I got out a bit more, and my eccentricities became more accepted than they had been at High School, and were in the end encouraged. At university, my friends loved to compare me to their fathers and grandfathers: wearing slippers to the bar and bow ties to lectures didn’t help my case.

My History BA at Reading did not quite satisfy my historical appetites, so I went and got an MA from Kent in Medieval and Tudor Studies. I loved reading the old documents in the Cathedral archive and studying a culture so different from ours, yet in which ours is so rooted.

As Desk Editor at Shire I get to look at many subjects that interest me, and many that I never realised would interest me. My posts will be about many different things and subjects that I think would interest Shire readers. I will also throw in some pictures and stories of my bike tours around Kent and the cultivation of the allotment patch I started renting in 2008.

If I were stuck in a lift, since Shire does not do a lift maintenance guide, as a lover of toilet humour and history combined, I would probably read Privies and Water Closets. If I were heir to a great fortune I would buy a large ballroom in which to practise my quickstep and Viennese waltz and a 1910s jalopy in which to ride back to my medieval hall house.