Four Faces: The Batman Family of York
Phil Batman
Ferncliffe Publishing 2014
ISBN 978-0-992875503
Available from: www.ypdbooks.com
From life ploughing the fields to satisfy a greedy sulking landlord to self-made men of the industrial revolution, from scratching a living from a few scruffy acres to squandering a fortune of as many whole farms, and from the Battlefield of Marston Moor to the Battle of Berlin, this is the story of the people of a corner of England over four hundred years.
The plot pivots around one day in the year of 1841, then focuses on the lives of a handful of people and their descendants: Dull William, and his adventurous children who set sail for foreign shores or settled for wealth here on earth or in the afterlife; Sad Old Tom, and his brave children who battled against a cruel dictator or even more cruel mother nature; Honest John, and his wayward children who were haunted by their own inner dark demons; Skilful George, and his unlucky children who loved or lived at the wrong time; and Serious George, and the author’s own parents. This is a social history of a rural then urban community as seen through the eyes of one family.
Professor Phil Batman is a retired pathologist who was born in York and has studied his own iconic surname there for 30 years.
Phil Batman is a Professor and retired Consultant Pathologist living in West Yorkshire. He obtained a Doctorate in Medicine from Cambridge University in 1997, and followed a second career in history, gaining a Master of Arts with distinction in English Local History from Leicester University. His thesis on families near York won the John Nichols and McKinley history prizes. He was born and grew up in York, and began working on his family history there in the 1980s.