Just One Damned Thing After Another (The Chronicles of St Mary's, #1)

by Jodi Taylor

Studying history opened doors to other worlds and other times and this became my escape and my passion.

Silence holds no fears for me. I never feel the urge to fill it as so many other people do.

Thinking carefully is something that happens to other people. ‘Do you have a pen?’

Here at St Mary's we investigate major historical events in contemporary time.’

‘It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.’

‘Show me a cup of tea and I’ll show you at least two historians attached to it.’

The most reliable method, she always insisted, was to measure people's thighs. As a rough guide, if the thighbone was longer than the shinbone then you were Saxon. If it was the other way round then you were Norman.

They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them.

There was – will be – an outbreak of flu. There's one nearly every year, I know, but this one was a killer. And cruel. It took the old and the young. Anyone from twenty to fifty only seemed to get it mildly. Other people, the ones outside that age group, just dropped and died. It was that quick.

You’ve seen this unit go through historians like laxatives through a short grandmother.