Many of you will have met Auntie Kate before. But for those who haven’t Auntie Kate, Kezia Ching, was born in 1860 and lived to the ripe old age of 73. She had two husbands and both of them had more than one wife! She never had children herself, but became step-mother to my grandmother Muriel when Kate’s sister Georgina died. She collected many items which are much prized by family historians such as myself.

Now Auntie Kate has a new lease of life as she has become my alter ego. So I will be taking her along to the FREE #HistoryForUkraine event. This 24 hour history and genealogy event has been organised by Natalie Pithers @geneastories and a great many friends and colleagues. 47 world renowned history and genealogy speakers plus Auntie Kate will be online to entertain you from lunch time Saturday (GMT) all the way through to lunch time on Sunday (BST). Do read more here and consider donating through the JustGiving page to the Red Cross Ukraine appeal.

So what is this trouble? Well, the first thing was she wanted a new hat for the occasion. Then she wanted more flowers to decorate it. Happily it does just fit…

Now I am having real trouble keeping her to time. Like many Devon women of a certain era she can talk the hind leg off the proverbial donkey. I have told her 20 minutes is the absolute limit, and that includes getting the technology to behave! Fortunately it is at 6am and she perhaps will not be into full flow at that time in the morning, although being brought up on a farm she is no stranger to early mornings.

She is getting quite excited: “But I can tell ‘ee all ’bout my family and livin’ in Sticklepath – a whole lifetime or more!” Oh dear, I will have to keep her on a tight rein and not let her get too excited or that Devon accent gets too strong! Then again she has her moments of nerves too and has to be calmed down.

Feel free to join us, or if you are enjoying your sleep at that time, recordings will be available for up to 48 hours. A huge range of topics and speakers, do find time to come along to some of it.