Historian hopes book will create ‘social electricity’ following successful launch

A historian behind a book about Lynn hopes it will inspire people to get more involved in the town.Dr Paul Richards celebrated the official launch of his book ‘King’s Lynn: A Potted History’ in the town hall on Wednesday, March 26.Joined by West Norfolk mayor Cllr Paul Bland, dozens turned up in support of the release and Dr Richards sold all of the copies he had brought for the evening.

He now says that he hopes it will spark a lot of interest in the history of Lynn, something which he has been researching since the 1980s.“We need people to be involved in their towns, help to preserve the heritage, make the towns more attractive and to get people working together,” he said.“We can achieve a lot by working together – I call it social electricity. “If you get social electricity in the town, you have a good town, with people who are proud and who have civic pride.”The 96-page book is part of the Potted History series by Amberley Publishing, which sees historians write about specific areas aimed at grasping the attention of those with an interest and who want to know more. “It’s trying to make sense of King’s Lynn, its origins, its development, why it was so important and what’s happening today,” he added.Dr Richards says he has “big fat files” full of information about the area and is very passionate about starting more projects in the future.“If I can, and there are people interested, I want to do something like what has recently been published in Boston. “The History of Boston project was released not long ago, where they got more than 30 historians to write something about a particular aspect of Boston, which they put together and made a book.”The author said that he would love to be able to get a similar number of people to each write a three or four-page chapter about something in Lynn. He hopes to launch this project in the autumn.Those interested in buying the book can do so from major book retailers, including Amazon here. It is also available to download as an e-book.