Back to http://www.romanbritain.freeserve.co.uk/

SOME QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

These are questions I quite often get asked:

Where does your name come from?

It’s a French name going back to the Middle Ages. In around 1440 Bertrand Huchet married one Jeanne, dame de la Bédoyère. Bédoyère was a fiefdom in France. Bertrand took the title, and became seigneur [Lord of the Manor] de la Bédoyère. Eventually the title was absorbed into the name, and the surname became Huchet de la Bédoyère, which is what my full surname is. There was one famous de la Bédoyère: Charles. He was Napoleon’s aide-de-camp at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 and was executed afterwards. I am NOT descended from him. His father was the first cousin of one of my ancestors. My grandfather was Michael de la Bédoyère (1900-73). He was editor of The Catholic Herald for around thirty years, and author of a number of biographical and theological works. I’ve only been to France once (1986), not including the 1999 Time Team Spitfire dig and the 2004 D-Day dig.

However, as is fairly obvious, people only have one unbroken male line in their ancestry. In my case that’s the French line. Every other part of my father’s background is English, Scottish and Anglo-Irish. My ancestors include Henry VII, Mary Boleyn (sister of Anne), and Sir William Cecil (Elizabeth I’s chief minister). I’m descended from Mary Boleyn’s son, Henry Carey, 1^st Baron Hunsdon, widely believed to be in fact Henry VIII’s illegitimate son, which is quite amusing if true. There’s a page about Mary Boleyn which discusses this.

My favourite ancestor is Emily Mary Hill (1750-1835), first marchioness of Salisbury (pictured left), my great (x5) grandmother. She was a reckless old lady who continued to drive herself to London to gamble and play cards. She eventually burned to death when part of Hatfield House went up in flames. I’m descended from her youngest daughter, Emily, whose own granddaughter, Mildred Greville-Nugent, married my great-great-grandfather Louis-Maris Alexis de la Bédoyère in Le Havre in 1869.

Two of my paternal great-grandparents came from the Lincolnshire family of Thorold (at the villages of Marston and Hougham-cum-Marston). Today I live quite close in south Lincolnshire though that’s pure chance.

My mother is 75% Glaswegian and 25% English (West Midlands), though I only discovered the English component recently. Richard Gough, former captain of Rangers and Scotland, is my second cousin (check the link – he looks surprisingly like me). My mother and his father grew up together in Glasgow in the 1930s and 40s. Many of my Scottish relatives now live in Australia.

How do you pronounce your name?

It’s pronounced BED-WHY-AIR, and Guy is English (rhymes with pie), not the French Guy (rhyme with knee).

How did you get interested in archaeology?

My father gave me a Roman coin when I was about 11 years old. I remember spending the evening transfixed at the thought of all the people that must have handled it, and all the things that had happened since it was made. I still have it.

Are you a historian or an archaeologist?

I have degrees in History and Archaeology. But I’m primarily a historian. Most of my books about Roman Britain are biased to its history, the literary sources and other written records. These give us the story. Archaeology, if you like, provides the set-dressing. One of my principal interests is the seventeenth-century diarist John Evelyn and his relationship with Samuel Pepys, his best friend. In 1997 I published their complete correspondence in Particular Friends. The Correspondence of Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn (Boydell), and of all the books I have written it was the most satisfying (see next question). I worked on the original manuscripts in London, Oxford, and at various other libraries, transcribing and annotating the texts and providing a full historical and biographical introduction.

The book has been used as a major source for various books since, for example Claire Tomalin’s Samuel Pepys. The Unequalled Self, which won the Whitbread Prize, and in 2005 was reissued in a second edition. In 2005 I completed another book, The Letters of Samuel Pepys, which is the first selection of his letters from all the possible sources to have been produced since the early 1930s and – believe it or not – only the second such selection ever. I learned Pepys’s shorthand to be able to do this. The book will be published in 2006.

I’ve also written a book about The Home Front for Shire books, and contributed to an encyclopedia of Irish history. One of my 2004 projects is a series of textbooks about science history: The First Computers, The Discovery of Penicillin, and The First Polio Vaccine.

More details of books here

Is it true you can fly?

I do have a pilot’s licence though I don’t keep it up. This page has more about it: Flying

What’s the most interesting thing you’ve done?

See previous question too. Although people have heard of me (if they have at all) through my books on Roman Britain, the most interesting thing to me was assembling, locating, transcribing, editing and setting the Correspondence of Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn, which I published in 1997 as Particular Friends for Boydell. It was truly fascinating tracking these two men and their friendship across 38 years of one of the most interesting times in England’s history.

What was the motorcycle you used in the BBC2 Romans in Britain series?

It was a 1977 Honda CB400F2, which I owned from1990-2004 (before me it had six owners). I bought it from a breaker, repaired it and put it on the road. I sold it in 2004 as, frankly, it wasn’t much use where I live now. Instead I run a rather boring but extremely reliable and practical Honda CD250U that was imported from Australia in 1997.

Where did you study archaeology?

I started Archaeology at Durham in 1977, got bored and changed to a multi-discipline degree. From 1982-5 I did a modern History degree at London while working at the BBC, followed by an MA in Archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology, London (now part of UCL).

Is Time Team really filmed over three days?

Yes, it really is. The crew and ‘on-screen’ people normally gather in the evening before Day 1 to discuss the project. Then the dig takes place over three real days, and most go home in the evening of Day 3. Other members of the team stay behind to clear up, tidy trenches and so on, backfill holes, and replace people’s fences etc that have been moved.

Can you get my site on Time Team?

The straight answer is no – Time Team have their own researchers who select sites from those submitted to them, or which they have researched themselves. The production staff meet to choose from the possibilities. The decision is always theirs: there are lots of different factors to consider. Sometimes the most exciting looking sites get dropped because access is impossible, or it’s the wrong time of year for the crops, or a similar site is already being set up.

Is Time Team your main job?

Not at all. I have only ever done 3–5 shows a year in the past but I’ve now chosen to wind down my Time Team involvement. I have many other projects on the boil. So you’ll only see me fleetingly in the series to be transmitted in early 2006 and I have no plans to take part in further shoots. Time for somebody else to stick their oar in!

What other TV programmes have you been in?

Quite a few. Lots of Time Teams, but I’ve also been in various documentaries, presented a 1998 series for BBC2 on Roman Britain, co-presented Channel 5’s Golden Mummy show last year, and several Richard & Judy shows. I’m currently (2005–6) filming and presenting a new family history series to be shown on UKTV History (Channel 12 on your Freeview box) in May 2006 (see My Famous Family).

What’s your next book?

It’s a general history of Roman Britain. Thames and Hudson will publish it in spring 2006, followed by my book of Samuel Pepys’s letters for Boydell in May or June 2006.

Back to http://www.romanbritain.freeserve.co.uk/