One Fine Day | February Book of the Month

It is easy to see history as dead and buried, a culture and time no longer relevant to the fast-paced modern world and its current technological advances. So it is uncanny yet strangely comforting when realising how similar our ancestors of centuries past can be to us today. From a cat’s inky paw prints found all over a 15th-century manuscript, to doodles in an 8th-century copy of the Act of Apostles, to trading cards from the 1800s, humans and animals have always had a relatable streak that no amount of time can change. For Ian Marchant, it was the discovery of the diary of his seven-times great grandfather from 1720 that he found he shared so much in common with Thomas Marchant (1676–1728), from family to hobbies to religion. Our endlessly fascinating February Book of the Month, One Fine Day brings alive two incredible stories, one from 1720, the other from 2020, in a vivid and unique examination of unsettled times.

Using his grandfather’s diary as an invaluable insight into the everyday life of a time that was just at the beginning of the industrial revolution, Marchant covers a broad range of captivating history, from geography to cricket to coffee to his own genealogy. With direct correlations from our world today to the one over three hundred years ago, Marchant shows how interconnected we are with the past, no matter how seemingly distant. Like Thom Marchant’s time, Ian notices how the world of the 2020s is plagued by war and pestilence, how they both witnessed coronations that used the same proclamation wording, experienced political frustration and anger, and money crises. On a more personal level, Ian and Thom both loved cricket and theatre, whistled the same tune, shaved their heads. The relatability and common ground are astounding.

This is not to say that there weren’t any differences at all — three centuries is still a significant length of time. Marchant notes how alienated we are from manufacturing and trade that heavily run our society compared to how Thom would have known exactly where his clothes and his food would have come from. The incredible advances in medicine compared to the pre-scientific and painful 17^th and 18^th century treatments which involved bleeding and boiling hot glasses. The changes in the fashion of cuffs and collars to creation of clothing, from making the linen to making that into chemises, dresses, and drawers. It is a completely enthralling observation and analysis of such a personal history – not just of Ian Marchant’s, but of our own ancestors that lived in the 1700s who may have lived in the same way as Thomas Marchant.

With good-natured humour, some melancholy and incredible levels of insight and examination, Ian Marchant delivers a delightful and moving narrative that romps through a complete range of history and politics that reminds us of our ties to an astonishing living past that will never cease being relevant in present and future. One fine book indeed.

‘Marchant is infectiously curious and impetuous … a delightful thing.’
Financial Times

‘Extraordinary … A highly entertaining and often deeply sensitive account of a man and his ancestor, thought-provoking and often moving.’
Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine