Little Waldingfield Suffolk, Our Village History From 1840 to 2014

Latest update – two trustees spent another 7 hours yesterday with our book designer at Lavenham Press, going through the book page by page to insert final double page colour photos of the village, modify certain existing page layouts, correct typos, fine tune some images and adjust other oddities that somehow crept in. Our Designer David has been an absolute star, by turns incredibly patient and incredibly skilful – we have been very lucky to have his services so freely.

We now have  fifteen chapters, including a supplement which brings the story bang up to date. The book is now exactly 352 pages in length, which just happens to correspond to 11 offset litho sections of 32 pages each; this maximises the efficiency of printing and all trustees are exceedingly proud of what we have created together – the book looks most professional.

We have sadly gone beyond our original target date, due in no small part to the extent of our coverage of the village over the chosen timeframe. That said, we have most definitely not added anything for the sake of it, but there were so many great stories that the book kept expanding in size. This was despite strenuous efforts by the editor urging brevity, and its now very hard to believe that initially we were all quite convinced we would really have to dig around and work exceptionally hard just to achieve our original target of around 200 pages.

Trustees now have two final proofs for checking, including for the first time one cut down to final book size, though not bound. Checking will not now involve a detailed read through, or even backwards read as one trustee has resorted to – this really works but takes an incredible amount of time. Our priorities now are to check the amendments recently made, check the overall ‘feel’ of the book and of course to (hopefully) identify any remaining ‘sillies’ – our admiration for proof readers knows no bounds.

We have decided not to arrange our book launch until we have final printed books in our hands – this is because a fellow HLF grantee (who is producing a series of smaller books) recently received her latest offering back from (different) printers two days ahead of her book launch, only to discover a catastrophic error somehow made by the printing process that necessitated a last minute deferral of the launch – most embarrassing and annoying.

We hope to launch by end September, but as this is dependent on final checks and the size of the queue at our printers, it is very possible our launch may take place in October, but it will most definitely be no later than October. As previously advised, the book will be available as a paperback at £18.00 and in a limted edition hardback with DJ (dust jacket) at £30.00.

We continue to receive many enquiries as to when the book will be available to buy; this is really encouraging, and we already have a healthy advance order book in place. That said, if you would like to ensure you do not miss out, particularly for the hardback, which is going to be really beautiful, please reply to this blog so we can add your name to the list. No monies are required now and we will contact you in due course; alternatively please come along to the launch to enjoy a glass of wine and celebrate with us by purchasing your copy on the day – a day that trustees can hardly wait for.