Local History Books and Talks by Pip Wright

I am a retired Primary School Teacher, living in Stowmarket in Suffolk. I now write local history books and give talks to groups of all kinds and all ages across East Anglia. Together with my late wife Joy, who died in July 2005, I have spent a number of years gathering information on Suffolk social history. My particular passion is the newspapers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Joy and I produced a number of books drawing from old local papers, and I still have hundreds more good stories I intend to publish.

This web-site should enable you to explore the books and talks I have available, but also, to inform you as to what I am working on at the present time.

Amongst my most recent books have been ‘Thomas Slappe’s Booke of Physicke’, an edited collection of herbal remedies from the eighteenth century, full of strange and wonderful concoctions, and ‘A Picture History of Margaret Catchpole’, which tells the story of this well-known Suffolk heroine through a collection of pictures painted by Rev. Richard Cobbold over 150 years ago.

Recently published, 'Exploring East Anglia by Bus-Pass' demonstrates just how easy it is to tour Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex and surrounding counties free of charge, just because you have reached the grand old age of 60.  Priced at £7.95, expeditions of all kinds are described here.  This replaces ‘Exploring Suffolk by Bus-Pass’ and is even more adventurous.

Published in September 2010, ‘The Watery Places of Suffolk’ explores those hidden damp corners of the county that you might not know about.  A large collection of historical gleanings will be completed this winter and will probably be published in 2011 under the title ‘Frolic, fervour and fornication.’