Professor Lance Pettitt

Brighton, summer 1912. Kate, a housemaid meets and falls in love with a German hotel waiter called Franz and they have a child out of wedlock. Two generations later, within Kate’s wider family nothing about her German connections were known – what was the big secret?

Using a combination of archive history, family anecdote, images and readings of creative writing, this talk explores a micro history of Anglo-German relations between 1912-1933 and considers the legacy of shadows cast over a family.

Professor Lance Pettitt is an academic, commercial ghostwriter, author and gardener. Holding degrees from Kent, Dublin and London, he was a university lecturer for over 25 years, including visiting professorships in Spain, Brazil, Austria and at Bergische Universität, Wuppertal (2021-22). Since becoming emeritus, Lance has explored the Anglo-German relationship by writing a novel based on his grandmother’s life, an excerpt from which is being published in the AGFHS’s Mitteilungsblatt 143 (Spring 2026).