My link to my ancestor Duncan Edwards is through my mother Loraine. She grew up with Duncan and has several family memories of him. She has unique memories of Duncan as a boy and an honest opinion on how he has been commemorated by the family and others. Predominantly 'our' side of the family - the Edwards side have not talked about Duncan or had a public profile in his commemoration. This has mostly been out of respect for the dead and a desire to stay out of the limelight and not jump on any bandwagons. The impetus for writing my PhD was to explore the significance of memory makers in the construction of the Edwards we feel we know today. Many of those who seek to construct Duncan's memory never met him and have no family link to him. They have different reasons for commemorating his life and benefit from the association with him in a variety of ways. Others like my mom (drawn here as a girl from a photograph) have different reasons for keeping their memories of Duncan private and low key.
As a researcher I explore the reasons and the memories to disentangle and investigate who and how we remember our dead.
