Authors Electric

A little while ago, I had a Facebook profile picture taken of me holding a pen and a sword – well actually it was a large wedding cake knife, but the message was the same – The pen is mightier than the sword. So I was quite surprised to learn that the person who first came up with that phrase was Edward George Bulwer-Lytton. Or in short, Lord Lytton. This caught my interest as I live in Lord Lytton Avenue. So, deciding to do a little more research on him I found that Edward Bulwer-Lytton was an English novelist, poet, playwright and politician. Born in 1803 he was hugely popular and wrote 27 novels, earning him a considerable fortune. Knebworth House, famous for its rock concerts (I've seen David Bowie and Queen there), was his home. Edward Bulwer-Lytton Through his writing, he came up with a number of phrases which have been turned into cliches, such as the great unwashed, dweller on the threshold, the almighty dollar, as well as the infamous opening lin...

My dad, Edward Carroll Wouldn't it be nice to get so famous that the Who Do You Think You Are? TV team did a programme on your ancestors? They make it look so easy with allocated genealogists and historians doing all the leg work then coming up with the results effortlessly. Ah, if only! Although doing the research is half the fun. There's something fascinating about tracing your family tree, discovering your roots, seeing what skeletons are lurking in the cupboards. And of course, the great thing is, with self publishing there's nothing stopping anyone from producing the finished story as a book or website without any major financial outlay should they want to.  My research has taken me back to the mid 1800s so far and I was lucky in that my mum wrote her life story in notebooks, which I'm busy transcribing. I just wish I'd asked her more questions when she and my dad were still around. My mum, Violet Carroll (nee Hardy) I'm also sc...