Well goodness me… here we are, already two weeks into our autumn term!

It’s been lovely to see those of you who’ve joined us thus far - with both metaphorical and literal shiny new pencil cases at the ready!

If you’ve not yet joined us for one of our longer offerings, but fancy some autumnal Wright History, never fear - we have a veritable banquet of alternative entertainments available. And yes… as longstanding Denizens may guess, that is indeed a shameless lead-in, because now is about the time for our traditional round-up of upcoming Short & Sweet courses. We know that many of you find these round-ups helpful, as it’s very easy for a short course to slip off one’s I’ll Sort That Out Soon list.

Plus we have some exciting news on Life at Wrightington Towers. But first, our round-up, for those of you to whom it might be useful.

In calendar order…

The Indian Rebellion

(NB No… it’s not too late to sign up - and as ever, catch-up is available!)

Roman Yorkshire

The Wanderers:

The beauty of Russian Realism

The Hittites:

Lost empire of the ancient world

The Middle Country:

10th- to 14th-century China (Pickering)

The Flavians

Turner, Constable, and the Romantic English Landscape

The final entry in our round-up isn’t a Short & Sweet, but it is a short course (so still belongs here)…

The Art of China

And so to our breaking news…

I have a new job, which will, we think, work jolly well with what I do here at Wright History.

As regular readers may remember, I have been seeking part-time employment outwith Wright History for a while. Not, I hasten to add, because I don’t love what I do here, but because mundane practicalities mean that we need some extra income to keep the Good Ship Wright History afloat. Depressingly, my applications for McJobs were unsuccessful,* but in addition to the McJob applications, I also optimistically applied for a post which was an “unlikely, but hey - why not at least try, and if not now, when?” long-standing pipe dream.

*[And no… I didn’t use the term “McJob” in any of said applications! More importantly, many thanks to those of you who were with us throughout spring/summer as the saga unfolded - your ongoing encouragement helped us both more than you will ever know!]

I’m delighted to say that as of this week, I am a Celebrations Officer. Huzzah!!

And as if the title weren’t almost ridiculously fabulous in itself (and yes, I know… it does sound like a Joanna-ism, but it really is my actual job title on my actual contract!), what it entails is still more fabulous, because I’m going to be marrying people. How lucky am I?!

Even now, every time I say or type that, I feel giddy and do a metaphorical happy dance!!*

*[Said happy dance is still happier, as my imminent work “uniform” is nothing like Mr Cook’s supra. My wardrobe is entirely black, and white/gold frocks really aren’t me!]

A wee bit of background for them as may be interested…

When Robert and I were at the “hmm. Might we be more than good friends…?” stage in early 2017, our first “Crikey, is this effectively ‘a date’?” outing was to register his beloved mother’s death. The registrar was spectacularly lovely - making a horrible bit of officialdom at a ghastly time not only bearable but actually OK. As we left the hospital, relieved at how wonderful she had rendered the whole experience, Robert said, en passant, that I’d be good at doing that too. My career plans at that point were very different, but a seed was sown.

Fast-forward to 2019, as we were arranging our marriage, having concluded that we were indeed now more than good friends. Everyone at the Register Office was wonderful at helping us to navigate the whole process, and I asked, as we were doing the pre-hitching practicalities,* how one might get into doing this, because I felt that I might be able to do for others what had been done unto us.

*[I don’t think that that’s the official term. I’ll let you know once I’m better informed…]

Events took us down a different road for a while, and with lockdown came a hitherto unexpected road in the form of Wright History, but here I am now - finally able to do what I dreamed I might eventually do back in 2019.

This new development will, as you’ll imagine, have some effect on what we’re doing here at Wright History.

It is a very part-time job, so once I’ve been trained, inducted, and let loose to Celebrate in the wild, we don’t think it will make an enormous difference to the day-to-day running of Wright History, other than Robert “flying solo” for occasional courses, and not scheduling any Joanna-courses until I’ve settled into my new adventures.

In the shorter term, however, it means that we’ll be announcing our programme for January 2025 a little later than usual. We’d usually have announced a new term’s offerings by now, but we need to wait until we have a bit more of an idea of what my hours may be. Thank you for bearing with us. We’ll be in touch again with a feast of tasty morsels with which to tempt you as soon as possible!

In the meantime, to see all courses currently available , click here.