I've always liked writing, even before I became a journalist, so when my wife, Rosemary, and I came to the UK from Melbourne, Australia in 1968, I wrote a detailed diary of the journey. Once we reached London, I sent a copy of the diary to my family back in Australia. I then, over the following decades, wrote to the family at least once a week. They were what could be termed "journalistic letters". By that I mean they contained illustrative detail, not just simple uninformative statements such as "We went to a local museum yesterday. Very nice".
I wrote the letters and travel diaries without giving a thought about how important they would become years later. Before my mother died she revealed that she had kept all my letters and diaries and gave them back to me. I then realised I had a detailed written history of my family from 1968 onwards. They made a wonderful read, but there was more than that as you will see from the message I have posted on Substack:
Here is the index to the chapters posted so far: https://iandrichardson.substack.com/archive
