About Me - Tom
Firstly, I would like to welcome you to the Wandering Through The Ages blog! Andrea and I are looking forward to indulging our passion for history and taking you, our dear reader, on a journey through the eras and ages that have captivated us in a format we all know and love. This page, and this page only, is all about me! The difficult part is knowing where to start...
My love for history goes back as far as I can remember, my earliest memory is exploring King Arthur's Labyrinth in Corris, Machynlleth in Wales. There I was captivated by an underground story telling adventure of Arthurian legend, to this day I still have the wooden sword with my name engraved on it. Whilst wrapped up in Arthurian legend, history didn't fully start to take hold until I was introduced to J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord Of The Rings trilogy, I must have been about 7 or 8 and I fell in love with the epic story of friendship, heroism and honour, my favourite parts were always the grand battles of Helm's Deep and Pelennor Fields. I was often naturally inquisitive and curious, always wanting to learn more about this massive world that Tolkien had created, but as I went through school I noticed similarities between Tolkien's world and our own history. With this in mind Tolkien really is a gateway.
History in school was always fun for me, I have to admit I was a regular teacher's pet. I also embraced literature which would form the foundation for my love of language and storytelling. One of my favourite yet most humbling experiences came on a year 9 school trip to Ypres in Belgium. There I got to walk through the very same trenches the soldiers did from 1914-1918. I visited the grave of the youngest soldier to fall during the war, who's grave is on the same site where Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae MD penned the famous poem In Flander's Fields. Visiting various cemeteries, such as Langemark German Military Cemetery and Tyne Cot Cemetery were humbling experiences, as I come from a military background, where my Great-Great-Grandfather Sgt. Charles Merryweather served in Gallipoli during the World War One campaigns. The most impactful experience was hearing The Last Post echo round the walls of the Menin Gate, scarily the first name I saw upon entering was a man called Thomas H. Fordham, one initial off my own name Thomas J. Fordham. On this trip I discovered my love for poetry and the vivd imagery the World War One poets emphasised. No surprise here that I also discovered that Tolkien was a World War One veteran of the Somme. I believe that this trip was a defining moment in my history career, alongside my visits to H.M.S. Victory in Portsmouth's historic dockyard and Fort Nelson. I didn't start to get frustrated with history at school until I started my GCSE in the subject. I'd always loved the Medieval period and I spurned any "modern" history, I found the Cold War infinitely boring to say the least. I wanted to know more about what inspired Tolkien and of great mythologies, pagans etc., which obviously lead me to three very distinct groups of people Anglo-Saxons, Vikings (Norse) and Celts.
I came mostly to these subjects through music, as some of you may know I am also the man behind Fjordhammer Music! As a metalhead I often explored folk, viking, death and black metal and loved the diversity of stories and influences in these genres. Bands such as Wardruna, Heilung, Amon Amarth, Forefather and so many others brought to life the sounds and stories of these people making it a visceral learning experience. Also, TV series like Game Of Thrones, Vikings and The Last Kingdom just fuelled this unquenchable thirst for knowledge of the so called "Dark Ages". Consequently I have delved into the sagas and epic poetry and lived vicariously through them, just like I did when I read The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings. The mythology and heroes of these people have always captivated me yet so has the conversion of Britain to Christianity, there is so much going on and so much to speculate about that is why I find it so thrilling!
This has been the catalyst that has lead to my dream travel destination choices. In 2018 I got to fulfil one of them with an epic trip to Stockholm, Sweden. There I visited plenty of free museums such as the Medieval Museum, Swedish Military Museum and The Swedish History Museum (the only one I had to pay for was the Vasa Museum, which is in Djurgården the 'Mayfair of Stockholm' and coincidentally where I found all the English tourists, so next time they tell you Sweden is expensive, ignore it, you just need to know where to go). My favourite exhibit was the Vikingr exhibition, and The Gold Room, which was located in the Swedish History Museum. There I came face to face with Birka Girl, saw real rune stones, daily life artefacts and swords. The whole two week visit will be one of my favourite holidays as i was my first travelling solo. If anything, it shows how far I'm willing to go to look at a few rusty pieces of metal! More recently I have turned my attentions to the Anglo-Saxon side of the coin, building up a particular love for figures such as Alfred the Great, Æthelstan and Oslwad of Northumbria. Given the proximity in which I live to the Welsh border there is plenty of Saxon vs. Brythonic cases to keep me going. The closet being a monument to the great battle of Eðandun (Edington) and the Battle of Deorham (Dyrham).
With all considered, I hope that this has given you some idea as to what you can expect from me (for any information on my musical background, head over to Fjordhmamer Music). I have devoted the last five years of self study to these subjects and it is awesome to have the opportunity to share my thoughts and findings with all of you! So, join us as we start Wandering Through The Ages.
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