Pepys' Diary - Site News

What are your favourite diary moments?

Phil Gyford — 2012-05-20T17:03:56+00:00

As we approach the end of the diary it would be great to read what your favourite moments from the diary are. Any particular phrases or events that have stuck in your head? Any especially memorable descriptions? If it’s a brief snippet, post it in a comment below, with a link to the diary entry. If you have an entire entry that you want to share, just post a link to it and tell us why you love it.

Thanks to Pauline Benson on the discussion list for this idea!

Pepys Commemoration Service, 25 May

Phil Gyford — 2012-05-20T16:58:08+00:00

This coming Friday, 25 May, there’s a commemoration service at noon at St Olave’s church:

Since 1927 (allowing for some years’ interruption following the catastrophic bombing of April 1941) St Olave’s has held an annual service to commemorate its most illustrious former parishioner, Samuel Pepys. The service is organised in association with The Samuel Pepys Club.

The service traditionally features an address on aspects of Pepys, his life and times and the church has been honoured to welcome a number of extremely fine speakers over the years.

This year we will be pleased to have with us Prof. Peter McCullough of Oxford University, who will speaking on the subject “Pepys and Faith”. This is a subject which we have wanted to address for a number of years and are very glad that Prof. McCullough has been able to accept our invitation on this occasion.

It is apparently open to anyone who wishes to go, so do pop along if you’re in town and nearby!

Thanks to Glyn Thomas and Peter Easton for this.

Roll Call. Say hello!

Phil Gyford — 2012-05-12T16:38:37+00:00

Some time ago Laura K suggested we have a roll call for readers of the diary to say hello. This seems like a good time.

Whether you’re a regular annotator, or have been quietly reading along since the beginning, or have only recently joined us, please do post a comment below and say hello to your fellow readers around the world!

You don’t need to write much. As Laura suggested, just let us know where you’re from, how long you’ve been reading, and anything else you’d like to share.

If you haven’t posted anything before, don’t overlook the “What is Samuel’s surname?” question in the form that helps filter out the spammers. And note that the first time you submit the form you’ll see a preview of your comment, and then you’ll need to click the “Post” button to finally submit it.

Hello!

Expect more visitors this month

Phil Gyford — 2012-05-01T09:47:10+00:00

As we approach the end of the diary there’s a chance this site will attract some publicity. I’m not going out of my way to get lots of coverage, but then I didn’t when the site started and there was quite a bit! I mention this because if there is publicity then we will have many more visitors to our friendly part of the web.

If this happens there might be more annotations, more often-answered questions asked, more off-topic chatter… After all this time it might feel like our little home is suddenly swamped with strangers. I’m sure you’ll all be helpful where appropriate — this is more a warning that we might feel a bit overwhelmed by interlopers.

Hopefully, it’ll all be fine and there’ll be nothing to worry about, but I didn’t want any regulars — whether frequent annotators or long-time lurkers — to be surprised and annoyed by a rush of people who haven’t been following Sam’s journey for months or years. Be patient, and remember it’s their loss that they’ve only just arrived!

Also don’t forget the Pepys’ Diary group on Yahoo should you need to discuss anything slightly more off-topic or away from the crowds. I hope you all enjoy the final stretch.

End of Diary Events Update

Phil Gyford — 2012-04-24T09:20:25+00:00

Both the previous posts about end-of-diary events in London and Massachusetts have been updated, so I thought it might be worth highlighting those here.

The London event on 26th May (now a guided walk followed by lunch) is now full. After a few weeks it seemed like interest was tailing off so I arranged with a guide to take us on a Pepys-oriented walk. He, understandably, has a limit of 20 people, which seemed like more than enough.

Since then a few other people have enquired and we’ve now reached the limit (with a few already on the waiting list). So I’m very sorry if you were interested in coming but haven’t yet got in touch with me.

The Massachusetts event on 13th May has had to change location due to Mothers’ Day filling up the original venue. If you’re planning on going, please email carl_wickstrom@comcast.net for more details, or to confirm.

Planning for 26th May in London

Phil Gyford — 2012-03-14T17:45:26+00:00

As mentioned late last year we are planning to round off our journey through the diary with a small celebration in London on Saturday 26th May 2012. It’s only a couple of months away, so I’d like to get some idea of how many people will be coming.

(UPDATE: Places are limited to 20 on the walk and we currently have that number of people confirmed. If you still want to come, let me know, but I’m afraid you’ll be on the waiting list. 18 Apr 2012.)

So, if you’re planning on being around on that day, please do email me and let me know how many of you there are.

My vague plans so far are for a walk around the City area of London for probably a couple of hours in the afternoon, followed by dinner somewhere in the early evening. These plans might change, but we’ll definitely be doing something on that day — I’ll confirm plans when I get a better idea of roughly how many people will be there.

I’m going to see if there’s anyone who could do a good guided Pepys walk (let me know if you have ideas) or, if I do a bit of preparation, we could probably manage our own! If I go for the former option there may be a small charge involved to pay the guide.

Anyway, let me know if you’re coming!

(If you have questions about what happens on this site after the end of the diary please see this post.)

Family Tree updated

Phil Gyford — 2012-02-13T18:44:34+00:00

In case you like to keep an updated version of the Pepys Family Tree to hand, I’ve just made a couple of small updates to it. I’ve added Babs and Betty, daughters of Roger Pepys, and his new wife, Esther (all over on the far right). I’ve also added Elizabeth Pickering’s 1668 marriage to John Creed, which had gone unrecorded.