Two additions to the website

Notwithstanding appearances to the contrary, neither this blog nor the website it lives in is devoted exclusively to contemporary politics, civil rights controversies and expressions of anger and disappointment concerning Mr Tony Blair.  Many of the best pieces are by contributors other than me, including two new and highly readable pages. 

The first is an account by the researcher, historian and former diplomat, David Tothill, of an instructive controversy that arose over a contract entered into (or possibly not entered into) years ago by a prominent Australian diplomat, later head of the Australian Foreign Ministry.  The dispute raises interesting questions concerning diplomatic privileges and immunities, on which I have been musing here recently.  David Tothill’s account is here.   

The second is by my wife, Jane, who has largely re-written, expanded and brought up to date her earlier account of my father, Harry, and his family and forebears (therefore of course also mine).  The new revised edition (here) is not only a fine piece of family history reseach, tracing Harry’s and my Barder family origins back to the Jewish quarter of Krakow in what is now Poland, but also a highly readable piece of social history about the fortunes of an immigrant family which came to England in the 1850s and how they adapted to their new circumstances down the generations:  multiculturalism?  integration?  assimilation?  Judge for yourself.

Jane’s several other pieces of family history — chronicling both her own and my family histories, including the adventures and misadventures of the German Lutherans in the American colony and state of Georgia on the other side of my own family, are also on this website, and listed here.   Leave enough time to enjoy!

Brian