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" As historians, we spend days in archives, gazing at account books. We train would-be historians in the arts of deciphering letters and documents, early Latin, scribal handwriting, medieval French. "

Kate Williams

Train

Letters

Arts

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" My Welsh grandmother Mair didn't meet my grandfather until she was 28, quite old to be unmarried in the early '40s. "

" I wonder if there'll ever be a time where you're not judged by your appearance. It seems that wherever you've got to, your appearance is always discussed. It's never said about men. We talk about a man's charisma, not his looks. "

" It's the 21st century. It's untenable to suggest that women had no significance and no interest and that just because they didn't vote they had no relevance to the course of our history. "

" I've always considered myself to look like a rather plain-and-exhausted bluestocking, so it's rather odd to read Tweets commenting on my appearance. "

Kate Williams

Appearance

Myself

" Precise historical reasons are difficult to pinpoint, but red hair, it seems, bestows a sense of otherness. Red is the colour of blood and danger. "

" Over the years to come, one thing is for certain: if the monarchy wishes to stay relevant and in power, it will have to change more. "

" Unless I'm asked to dress up in a costume, TV shows prefer a clean, modern look, so I've developed a wardrobe full of plain, bright colours. If it's an outdoors job, I just wear big jumpers. "

" Some archives and record offices are housed in your local museum or library; others have their own stand-alone building. Wherever they are, they are a treasure trove. "

" I love wearing green, and I like grey and black, but I don't think they really suit me. "

Kate Williams

Green

Love

" Eighteenth-century matrons would have never have dreamed of appointing a redhaired wet nurse for their precious offspring - redheads passed on their horrible characters through their milk. "

" I wouldn't mind an original letter from Napoleon to Josephine - in the early days, his letters arrived torn to pieces because he was overwhelmed by his passion for her. "

" When I was a child, one of my first games was a time machine which I made for my brother - a big box covered in silver and bits of cellophane. I'd close him up in it and joggle him and say, 'We're in Victorian times now... and now we're in Egyptian times, and I can see all these pyramids and pharaohs.' "

" One woman came up to me at a lecture and observed that I was much fatter than on television; I think I look better onscreen than in real life. It's the lights. "

Kate Williams

Life

Think

" The modern museum has multiple purposes - to curate and preserve, to research, and to reach out to the public. They challenge us and ask us to question our assumptions about the past or the world around us. "

" Women's stories have been neglected for so long - unless they were queens. Exploring the history of women is a way of redressing that imbalance. "

" I'm fascinated by historical fashion, and I like to live in the past slightly. If I could walk around all day dressed in a crinoline, I would. "

" I really enjoy watching TV; it offers an amazing window, and its an incredible way of presenting history to young people in particular. "

" Colour is really important to me when buying clothes. I wear a lot of fitted jackets, and because I'm small, I avoid long skirts and coats. And I hate wearing hats. "

Kate Williams

Long

Hats

" The 19th century became the age of the museum. Objects were scrambled for, specimens seized, and friezes and antiques grasped. "

" Between 1945 and 1965, the number of colonial people ruled by the British monarch plunged from 700 million to five million. In 1956, just three years after the coronation, the Suez canal crisis and Anthony Eden's humiliation ended all notions that Britain was a world superpower. "

" People are not happy with women in actual power, yet we seem to be happy to take women on as figureheads, objects, like queens. It's a powerful yet politically powerless role. "

" Now I would go to London's Pudding Lane on 2 September 1666 and put out that little fire. I'd love to investigate the histories of a few of the buildings that burned for Restoration Home. "

" I think increasingly we want to read the history that wasn't written by the victors. "

" Analysis of soil, grave goods and skeletons has been key to our understanding of archaeology and the migration of peoples, as well as their daily lives. But in mainstream history, we tend to stick to documents. "