Writing based around family or home

At present I’m reading a novel inspired by the author’s research into a mystery relating to his own family. His grandmother’s father seems to have disappeared in her early childhood to become, as they phrased it, ‘a Canadian cowboy’. The author, Patrick Gale, decided to piece together the facts that he had unearthed, filling in the unknown details with his own imagining of what may have created the situations he had uncovered. The result was the splendid ‘A Place called Winter’.

A few years ago we had just moved into a croft, the name of which first appears on maps as early as 1500. A friend in a walking group told me a story about an old drunkard who had lived in our house before the family who had preceded us. I invented a story about him, which was published in the local arts magazine. Later I discovered a friend and neighbour (half a mile distant) used to visit our house, as the ‘drunkard’ mentioned was a relation of hers. Luckily she seemed unbothered by my story of his scurrilous fictional exploits! 

Write a story or a poem based on some event or mystery in your family or creating a fictional past for the place where you live. 

^{Header image geralt-christmas family Pixabay}

^{Photograph of croft Gill Tennant}