| Summary: | The first four volumes in this series together constituted a serialised version of Howard’s life story in four parts. The current volume is more similar to volumes 5 to 9. The diaries that those volumes transcribed were more of a traditional daily diary, with day by day observations on current events, the weather, the fishery, births, marriages and deaths, and normal and unusual occurrences. But they also included some reminiscences of Howard’s earlier life. In view of the timing of those diaries, they also covered the momentous days of WWII and the period of economic hardship and political turmoil as Newfoundland found its feet in a new relationship with Canada after the war. Now in the tenth volume we see Howard following this same methodology in his diary writing, but his subject matter is now quite different. The diary covers a relatively brief period between June 20 1949 and January 29 1950, a period during which Howard was beginning to get used to no longer being in charge of the Morry fish business in Ferryland. The departure of his son, Reg, to follow his wife and their first child back to England in November 1947 (detailed in Volume 8), had destroyed Howard’s plans for a transfer of responsibilities for his fishing and farming ventures to allow him some comfort and leisure in his twilight years. Instead we learn in this volume that Howard’s eldest son, Bill, has taken on this responsibility, in addition to the kinds of quasi-governmental perks and duties that Howard himself had previously enjoyed. As in previous volumes, in order to provide readers not familiar with the “cast of characters” or the local and international historical events mentioned in the pages of the diary a clue to their identity, an extensive set of endnotes has been provided as an assistance in reading and fully understanding the context. Future volumes in this series will follow a similar model and cover single years, or at least brief periods of time taken from a single diary. The Diaries of Howard Leopold Morry, 1939-1965, Vol. ...
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