Reviews by John Higgins:
2015-2021 The Diaries of Ernest Wakefield (Four talks)
Since 2015, Edward Hilditch has given four talks to Sandbach History Society about the diaries written by his grandfather, Ernest Wakefield. Ernest was born in Elworth in 1880 and spent his working life at Fodens; he married and had three children and continued to live in Elworth for the rest of his life. Inspired by reading the diaries of Samuel Pepys as a child he wrote a diary from the age of 14 making a pencil entry for every day until his death in 1963, completing one volume per year. The diary entries tended to fall into three sections: the first detailing how he had been occupied at work on that day, the second giving his views on how events in Europe were progressing and the third describing family and personal matters.
In the first talk in 2015 he took the period covering the First World War, in 2018 he discussed the 1920s and in 2019 he covered the Recession in the 1930s.
