A Moment in Time - 50 stories that bring East Anglian history to life

On Monday 2 October 2017, I am publishing Peter Sargent's A Moment in Time - 50 stories that bring East Anglian history to life. I used to be an avid reader of Pete's history columns in the Eastern Daily Press and now I am very pleased to be working with him to publish a first collection of these columns.

Here's an introduction to the book: 

It only takes a moment to change the world. Our past is littered with these moments; from the grandest in the land – a Queen claiming her crown at a Suffolk castle – to the humblest – a workman whitewashing religious pictures in a church.

These moments in time helped create our history in East Anglia. In this book, former journalist Peter Sargent takes us on a journey in time, from the mysterious ancient figure of the Green Man in Norwich Cathedral, via the day King Charles II rode a winner at Newmarket’s racetrack on to Second World War soldiers preparing for the D-Day landings in woods on the Norfolk-Suffolk border.

In this series of short stories, many of which first appeared in the Eastern Daily Press newspaper, you will encounter famous figures who made their mark. Here is Oliver Cromwell raising an army in his own backyard, Queen Elizabeth I on a Royal Progress, while highwayman Dick Turpin goes about his nefarious business.

You’ll also meet less familiar figures and veer well off the beaten track. Here are tales of a Cambridgeshire Iron Age ‘hill fort’, Norfolk’s raffish 19th Century bare knuckle boxers and the sailors who fought a huge, but barely remembered, 17th century sea battle off the Suffolk coast.

Peter Sargent’s interest in history was sparked when he studied the subject at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, during the 1980s. After working in Peterborough and Cambridge, via spells in Malta and Hong Kong, he later returned to Norfolk to work as a journalist on newspapers and magazines. From 2004-11 he wrote weekly articles on local history which appeared in The Eastern Daily Press, and was production editor on Let’s Talk magazine for six years. He lives in Norwich. This is his first published book.

 

A Moment in Time, price £12 can be ordered here at allthingsnorfolk.com

ISBN Paperback: 9780995618718, 160 pages + 8 pages colour illustrations.