A Capital Tale: The Family Story FEBRUARY

by Peter Hoffmann

A Capital Tale - tells the story of an ordinary Edinburgh family as it is played out over a quarter of a century between the years 1971 and 1996. It is based on extracts from the author's diaries and journals and paints a picture of an earlier Edinburgh and the social and cultural life of one local family. The posts take the form of a Dali folded clock so that although the diary extracts correlate with the day of the year they include entries from amongst 25 years so the author may appear as a boy, a youth or a man - as a schoolboy or at work - single or married - as a son, an uncle and eventually as a father too. As the various stories and threads appear and ebb and flow it's rather like a TV soap but spread across several decades. And from this a tapestry begins to be weaved and distinct characters begin to emerge - of a family, encompassing great-grandparents; sets of grandparents; aunt; Mother and Father, brother and sister and many others too who flit in and out of the family's story. The journals begin in 1971 when the author is a 14 year old Boroughmuir schoolboy and goes all the way through to him approaching middle age when he celebrates his 40th birthday in 1996 and leaves the capital. Whilst much of the story is about the author and how he sees the world through his eyes perhaps that is just the nature of the diarist, but a flavour of that time, that place and that era and of course that family is beautifully captured - A Capital Tale and of times-past and of past times of residing in Oxgangs; Portobello; Powderhall; Morningside and Colinton which may be of interest to readers and to those still yet to come - of living in Edinburgh during that period of time and of her surroundings - her schools and her workplaces - of births, weddings and deaths - of life's ups and life's downs - of hopes, aspirations and dreams and of course regrets and disappointments too - all of Edinburgh life is here - a local story but a universal one too. The author intends to publish twelve volumes - one for each month of the calendar year.

170 pages, Paperback

Published March 11, 2019

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