Oh Happy Day: Those Times and These Times by Carmen Callil is an account of the author’s family history and ancestry research.

I’ve found myself very interested in family lineage and the history surrounding it lately. Therefore when given a chance to read this I jumped at it! Carmen Callil explores her roots- a story of injustice, emigration, colonial empires and the poverty stricken people of the nineteenth century.

I must admit that I found the first quarter of this book quite difficult to read. I spent a long time confused (doesn’t help that everyone had the same name back then so not the authors fault!) on who we were talking about and sometimes what was being talked about. I read this as a draft on kindle so potentially it was just the layout and if you get the finished draft it may be easier to read!

I loved the detail; but yet at times hated it. I felt like there were times when the author went off on a tangent for ages and when she finally got back to her main point I had forgotten exactly what this was. As much as I found the stockinger chat interesting I felt like it was over written and it could have been spoken about over less pages.

However, when Carmen started talking about her ancestor’s the Conquests I was hooked. Emigration to Australia is not something that is talked about often; it’s mostly to America therefore it really fascinated me! And also what life was like for people who were living in poverty in England. How they were treated as pests that they had to find a way to get rid of. The things that people were punished for; either by being jailed, whipped or shipped off to a foreign land are truly harrowing. All because of the injustices faced at the hands of the crown and government. If they did not steal a piece of bread for instance; then they would not have made it through the night.

I love the raw truth to what has been written. Being from Scotland our history is doom and gloom and we are taught about a lot of the bad things that the British Empire were guilty of. But as the author says herself, they only really mention the good things relating to Britain creating the Australian Colony. No one mentions how they destroyed the tribes who already lived there or the background of the people who actually helped to create it.

A heartbreaking and eye opening read; if you want a true account of what life was like for paupers in England and how life changed when they emigrated to the new world then definitely give it a read!

Like author, Carmen Callil, I am also very interested in family history and we share a typical background. My ancestor’s are more likely to be found in workhouse records than country houses, and, like her, a branch made their way to Australia and not necessarily willingly…

This is a fascinating account of the author’s family history, but wrapped up in a general history of the times. It begins with the birth of her great-great-grandmother, born in 1808. From that one record, unfolds the history of industry, of arrests, workhouses, protests, strikes, the labouring classes, the Chartists and transportation, among many other subjects. I found this a really readable account of her own family history, and enjoyed the way she branched out into other subjects. The blurb of this book does say it is, ‘fuelled by righteous anger,’ and there are, definite political undertones in this book. I found it a bit unnecessary at times – yes, times were unjust, but there was an attempt to create modern parallels that felt a little laboured in parts.

That said, overall, I found it a really interesting read and full of lovely details. So, for example, there is a cartoon from Punch, 1848, called, ‘Emigration as remedy,’ showing firstly a family huddled in poverty ‘here’ and then ensconced in their new home, and life, ‘there.’ It was a time of migration, of industry changing lives and jobs, and of societal change. Callil shows the real history behind these facts, using her own, family story, to illustrate events. I received a copy of this book from the publisher, via NetGalley, for review.