Ashley Smith

Annotations and comments

Ashley Smith has posted six annotations/comments since 24 December 2021.

The most recent first…

Comments

Third Reading

About Friday 24 February 1659/60

Ashley Smith  •  Link

By far my favourite days annotations so far.
It's taken me two 'end of work days' to read it all.
Just a tiny point about the 'view' that Sam doesn't seem to comment on. Apart from the other valid reasons, I'm wondering if the view at that time was mainly of trees, woods and forest.
At one time much of the UK would have been covered in forest, limiting many views, especially on flatter ground. Apart from villages and towns, the view might have just been very similar.
Fields and hedgerows that we know now would have been rarer back then, surely?
Does anyone know what was the field/forest ratio was back then? The population was only just over 5 million. A lot less mouths to feed and therefore land used for agriculture.

Second Reading

About Wednesday 24 February 1668/69

Ashley Smith  •  Link

I've noticed Sam's working ours are very er.. flexible. He works hard but very much seems to work to his own diary hours. Can anyone more enlightened and brighter than me, provide any more details of either Sam or the Navy board's employee working practice or just the working practices of the period in general? Thanks in advance.

About Monday 28 December 1668

Ashley Smith  •  Link

I think the first thing (and probably only) I would do with a time machine is fix Sam's eyes somehow. Lens replacement? Then drop a hint to Sam that he has to continue to write his diary until the day he dies. Pretty please Sam !