The Charms of Frankenstein with Fiona Sampson and Maya Attoun

Visiting Maya Attoun’s Charms of Frankenstein exhibition at the Jewish Museum, London, was a curiously disorienting experience. On arrival, you’re asked to take part in an intriguing ritual before you can engage with the exhibition: putting on disposable red gloves. You feel like a curator preparing to handle a delicate object, or perhaps a doctor preparing for surgery. Once you’re wearing the gloves, you are allowed to touch a copy of Attoun’s 2018 artist planner, and take your tour of the museum. You carry the planner with you, held in front of you in a gesture that makes me feel as though I am bearing a gift, offering it to the objects on display. The planner is affixed to a transparent acrylic tray, like an open and portable display case. The exhibition consists of museum objects, each identified with an individual number drawn on a red stone. Each number corresponds to a number in the planner. The museum objects are labelled only with numbers, so have no historical context with which they can be interpreted. The objects are not arranged in any order that I could see, forcing you to actively search for the corresponding number in the planner. And once you’ve found the number, you are confronted not with an explanation or history of the object, but an image. A delicate, realistic, pencil drawing. You are forced to re-orient yourself by making your own connections. For Attoun, it is these negotiations between object and image, artist and viewer, that are as fascinating as the object or image on their own. Her choices of the objects were, in her words, “aesthetic, visual, associative”. The ever-shifting interpretations provoked by bringing image and object into dialogue with each other, which in my mind, tessellate out with every new association, are, to Attoun, like the figure of Frankenstein’s Creature, which shifts with every new translation or retelling. In her conversation with Fiona Sampson, Attoun draws attention to the fact that in being unnamed, the process of creating the Creature is unfinished, and he is constantly being remade.

As Fiona Sampson explained in conversation with Attoun (far more eloquently than I can regurgitate here), when you put one thing in conversation with another, you have not two things, but three things. The drawings in the planner were completed months before the exhibition opened, and Attoun chose objects based on the already-completed drawings. The planner is rejuvenated by being put in context with the objects, much like the process of rejuvenation and (re)vitalisation that occurs in the creation of Frankenstein’s Creature.

For Attoun, the exhibition is an invitation to the viewer to be creative. It’s a unique way of interacting with both art and museum displays, where the only explanatory stories are the ones we tell ourselves. Her choice of objects destabilises the perceived hierarchy of museum objects: an IKEA napkin holder sits alongside a 17th-century figa amulet. This helped to explain the disorientation I felt in being confronted with a museum display stripped of its explanatory labels. Instead, Attoun’s approach gave validity to my own interpretation. I became fascinated with hands in the exhibition, both the exquisitely detailed drawings of hands in Attoun’s planner, and the hands displayed in the museum objects. Hands appear in the planner not just as objects in themselves, but holding other objects. I was aware of Attoun’s hands as they must have been involved in creating these images, and selecting these objects. I became aware of my own hands, turning the pages of the planner to find the appropriate images, involved in the process of interpretation, and mirroring the hands in the drawings. I’ve always had a fascination for the interaction between bodies and objects, and so this was a new way of engaging with museum objects, art objects, and my body’s role in interpreting them. I was constantly in mind of Frankenstein’s Creature as an embodiment of the object-body paradigm: an animated body made up of body parts that at one point had the status of objects.

Objects, planner, drawings: each is woven through with references to Mary Shelley and Frankenstein. Attoun described how part of her process involved rolling herself up (roling herself?) in the character of Mary Shelley. I loved her drawing of the reverse of Mary Shelley’s portrait, the portrait acting at once as a mirror and a means of seeing through Shelley’s eyes. Sampson described Frankenstein as Mary Shelley trying on different roles, as reflected in the different first person narratives: the role of the Doctor (the creator), and the Creature (abandoned and searching). In a way, in her biography, Sampson also takes on the persona of Mary Shelley. For Sampson, words are the shape of a breath. You can’t say more than what can be expressed in a breath. So you can find Mary Shelley’s breath, her life, in her words. I wonder what implications this has for Fiona Sampson’s own words telling the story of Mary Shelley. How the words of the two, the breath and life of the two, are somehow intermingled within her biography. When I read In Search of Mary Shelley (here’s my review) I was captivated and unsettled by Sampson’s creative approach. The presence of Sampson was more obvious to me in the writing than the presence of Shelley. But Sampson explained how, for her, literary biography tends to focus too much on the biography and not enough on the literary. In her biography of Mary Shelley, Sampson wanted to create something readable. Choosing to start each chapter with a scene from Mary Shelley’s life which was fully inhabited, focusing on every visceral detail, was a way of bringing the reader in, using that as a leaping point for the action that follows.

 

While attending the talk about Attoun’s exhibition and Sampson’s book helped me reorient myself and my understanding of both, I left feeling more comfortable with having been disoriented. Not knowing where I stood in relation to the objects, the drawings, even Mary Shelley’s life, was part of a process of foregrounding my own interpretations and experiences. Next time I visit an exhibition, I’ll be aware that my own agency in interpretation can rely not on being provided with external context, but in the context I bring to the act of interpreting.

Images of Maya Attoun’s work can be found on her instagram and website (where the planner is available to purchase). Fiona Sampson’s In Search of Mary Shelley was published this year by Profile Books. The Jewish Museum‘s current exhibitions, Roman Vishniac Rediscovered and Remembering the Kindertransport run until February 2019.

 

Literally life-changing letters: the story of Albert French

Archival “discoveries” of supposedly long-lost or forgotten documents seem to occur with surprising frequency. Often, how far this is a genuine “discovery” is dubious – if the document in question has been carefully preserved by an archivist, if it has even been catalogued, how far are you discovering something versus bringing it to the collective attention? The other week, though, I had the pleasure of hearing about a genuine archival discovery. Roger Kitchen of Living Archive MK treated an audience at MK Central Library to the story of his “chance discovery” of a bundle of letters, an event he described as “literally life changing”. Roger told us how, while helping with furniture removals in 1975, he purchased a box of encyclopaedias. Hidden at the bottom of the box, he found a bundle of letters from the 1910s. Captivated by the patchy narrative told within the letters of a young soldier from Wolverton, Roger set about trying to fill in the gaps in his story.

It transpired that the letters were sent by a young man of Wolverton, Albert French, and recounted his experiences as a soldier in the First World War. They were sent to his father and sister, living on Young Street (now demolished, but where Asda is now). Roger was able to find out that Albert was an apprentice fitter between 1913 and 1915 at Wolverton Works. His record card, held by MK Museum, shows he “left without notice” on 16th October 1915. Two days later, he was in London to enlist. While training in Essex, the tone of the letters is clearly optimistic, with Albert writing, “I shall rise like the early morning dew”. But the emotional trajectory of the letters takes a downward turn as Albert makes his way to Belgium and the realities of war sink in. “There are some soldiers who have the opinion that this war will be the end of the world”, he writes. Even faced with the brutal realities of war, Albert seems to carefully guard his feelings from those at home with some careful understatement, “now I’m here I don’t want the war to last too long”.

I am still alive and kicking, and in the best of health, and getting on quite all right. I can tell you it isn’t like home at all here, rather dull. I don’t bother about the shells and snipers’ bullets very much. Still, if you keep cheery you are all right. The war will have to end sometime, won’t it?

After a return to Wolverton on leave, the letters hint at potential romance: “I might as well tell you that I rather took a liking to Violet while I was home and I hope she writes to me. My mate did not think much of my photo, I wonder what Violet thinks of it? My mate said I looked about 14, and not much like a soldier.” Remarkably, Roger manages to track down Violet’s brother, still living in Wolverton. And here, another discovery to be unearthed: the very photo Albert’s letters talk about. We might never know what Violet thought of the photograph, but at least in sending it to her, Albert ensured that, decades later, we would know what he looked like.

Another letter gave away a clue to Albert’s history. His sister wrote to him in 1916:
“Dad and the boys send their love, you will soon be sweet 17 and never been kissed on the 22nd of this month. Well cheerio and keep on smiling. I will close now with all my fondest love. Hurry up and send me a line as you know you owe me one.”
The letter was returned, unread. The reason is revealed in the final two letters: “I regret to have to report the death of your son C7259 Rfn. A. French, who was killed by machine gun fire, whilst with a working party June 15th 1916.” It transpired that Albert had been killed just a week before his seventeenth birthday.

Even knowing the ending of this story already, hearing the full context of Albert’s life and letters shocked and moved me. The letters track a young man’s – a boy’s – journey from Wolverton to Essex to Belgium, from optimism to an early death. It’s easy to share in the sense of anger and betrayal expressed by Albert’s brother, when he was later interviewed by Roger: “He shouldn’t have been there, should he.”

Albert’s extraordinary story prompted further research, books, a play, songs, and a campaign to get his age of death marked on his gravestone in Ploegsteert, Belgium. The date of his death is marked, too, as part of the MK Rose. His letters give us an insight into the stories of so many young people whose lives are cut short by war. In many ways, we are lucky to be able to tell his story as fully as we can. And so Albert French stands in for so many un-named, unknown, and forgotten, victims of war.

Visit the Heritage MK website to find out more about Albert French’s story, or find out more about the work of the Living Archive. If you want to support the work of archives of Milton Keynes, fill in this survey to express your interest in a city archive.

The Author’s Effects: Objects, Literature, and Death

In preparation for September’s Literary Festival, MK Lit Fest have been running a series of taster events. Last night MK Gallery hosted Professor Nicola J Watson of the Open University and her audio-visual installation on literary tourism. Her engaging talk, ‘The Author’s Effects’, took us on a tour of authors’ homes and hideouts from Petrarch to J. K. Rowling. She looked at the rise of literary tourism in the 1780s, the objects left behind by writers, and our relationship with them. Watson has visited 100 literary museums worldwide in the pursuit of The Author’s Effects (and it took me until I got home to realise that this was a pun on ‘objects’ and ‘impact’…).

I jotted down some notes on her talk, intending to tweet about them, but 140 characters quickly became 500 words. So here are a few thoughts on The Author’s Effects:

It wasn’t until the late eighteenth century that the author’s effects really began to be preserved. Of course, for authors who had died before the eighteenth century, they had to be retrofitted with objects appropriate to their lives and writings. Shakespeare’s chair is a good example – there are at least five of them claiming to have seated the bard.

Local man William Cowper (of ‘Amazing Grace’ fame), was at the forefront of this new literary tourism, and the number of objects you can see that belonged to him at the Cowper and Newton Museum is astounding. This was thanks in part to people following in his footsteps on his walks, which he laid out in his poem ‘The Task’.

There’s a long history of magically multiplying relics, like Byron’s hair (which was most often the hair of his dog), and I couldn’t help but think of Shakespeare’s mulberry tree, from which an entire shipload of objects has been made over the years.

One of the most captivating objects is surely Petrarch’s cat, embalmed and displayed in an elaborate marble tomb, with a verse declaring that Petrarch loved his cat more than he loved his muse, Laura. The thing is, the cat was a joke, installed long after Petrarch’s death in 1635, in reference to a famous picture of Petrarch with his cat in his study. But the joke is long-lived – by the time Byron visits, the cat is authentically Petrarch’s, and even today, you can read about how Petrarch loved his cat so much he had it mummified. Watson has already written about the cat in her excellent blog: “What interests me about this cat is what sort of joke it is. It’s a joke on the cultural investment in the rather notional love of Petrarch for the ever unattainable and unattained Laura (at best a sort of stalking, one could argue). But it’s also a joke at the expense of the cultural desire to possess the material traces of the (relatively speaking) immaterial — myth and story, words and sentiment. It is, above all, a meditation on the desire to re-embody the disembodied – to re-body Petrarch himself.”

Which brings us neatly on to some other issues with embodying dead authors. The author needs to be sufficiently dead not to get in our way when we’re snooping around their house, but they must also be ever-lasting. Any reminder of their mortality, of their humanity, must be carefully negotiated. The clothes Wordsworth died in, for instance, were displayed on a standing mannequin in the room where he died – creating a rather unsettling effect. Now they are displayed elsewhere, more associated with a day in the life than the moment of death.

When Roald Dahl’s writing hut was dismantled and reassembled, all of his papers and objects were painstakingly preserved and placed in the correct location. But as well as picking up pens and photographs, they also collected up the dust in the hut (let’s face it, Dahl’s dead skin), and scattered it over the reassembled hut before sealing it off.

You might not want to think about Agatha Christie on the toilet, but it’s ok – the toilet seat can be connected to her writing. She took it with her when she went travelling with her archaeologist husband to Mesopotamia, where she wrote, among other things, Murder in Mesopotamia.

J. K. Rowling admitted that she had signed a bust in the hotel room where she finished writing Deathly Hallows: “JK Rowling finished writing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in this room (552) on 11th Jan 2007.” The Balmoral Hotel have now turned this into a pilgrimage site in its own right (and you can pay £965 a night to stay there yourself). I was struck by the difference in reaction between her admission of graffiti and Ian McEwan’s admission of taking a few pebbles from Chesil Beach, which sat on his desk while he wrote On Chesil Beach. When he admitted in an interview that he had taken the pebbles, Weymouth and Portland borough council “invited” him to return the pebbles. Rowling gets a tourist site made, McEwan gets threatened with fines.

 

And finally, what of the future? Watson thinks analysis of literary tourism will revolve around selfie culture. That and tuning in to a live-stream of authors as they write – watching in real-time the author’s words as they appear on the screen. Which, trust me, if you ever wanted to watch me type and delete and re-type this blog, would be a very dull thing indeed. But then, I’m not J. K. Rowling, or Nicola Watson.

Nicola J Watson’s book, The Author’s Effects: A Cultural Poetics of the Writer’s House Museum, will be published next year. You can view more of MK Lit Fest’s events on their website.

Discovery of the month: war-time adverts

There’s something glorious about old advertising: their dated language, their occasionally inappropriate gender stereotyping, their excitement at things we take completely for granted. Perhaps more than other documents they can make us feel that “[t]he past is a foreign country” (L. P. Hartley). Looking through the Wolverton Railway Works collection at Milton Keynes Museum, I found an excellent selection of adverts from the Second World War. Here are a few from ‘Industrial Welfare and Personnel Management: the Journal of the Industrial Welfare Society’ (1944).  This single magazine contains no fewer than four adverts for moisturising creams—the accident record books of the Works show that industrial dermatitis was a huge problem.

 

Music and Safety: “Workers are cheered and stimulated, and the pulse of their industry is quickened…” (Milton Keynes Museum, WWO/128)

Safe and Chic: Glamaband (Milton Keynes Museum, WWO/128)

Prototype for Bane: the Swivel Respirator Frame (Milton Keynes Museum, WWO/128)

 

For more about the Wolverton Railway Works collection at Milton Keynes Museum, visit Adventures in Archives:
Part One: Milton Keynes Museum
Part Two: Soundscapes and Tissue Paper
Part Three: What’s the Point?

Adventures in Archives: What’s the point?

Don’t worry, I’m not trapped in the grip of an existential crisis (at least, no more than usual). But as I’m listing accident record books at Milton Keynes Museum, identifying dates and creators and getting distracted by obscure treatments, I often find myself thinking: “what am I doing this for?” (And no, the correct answer is not, “my boss told me to”.) Perhaps it’s more relevant to ask, “who am I doing this for?” It’s a useful question to keep in mind, because the more I am aware of my audience, the more I can ensure I’m recording useful information. Of course, at this early stage of the archiving process, the details I’m recording will likely not be seen by the general public until the collection is properly catalogued. But it’s hard to avoid wondering what these records might eventually be used for. Greater minds than mine have much more to say on the “point” of archiving, so I will simply try to identify some potential uses of this particular collection—the accident record books of Wolverton Works.

Cover of accident record book Milton Keynes Museum WWO/41, 1931-32.

History of Wolverton Works

The first point is probably the most obvious. These books were vital documents in the running of Wolverton Works, updated on a daily basis. What insights can they give us to the Works themselves? Much of their usefulness will depend on what other records are available. There may well be much more detailed information about staffing and departments elsewhere. However, taking the record books in isolation, they communicate a range of information including who worked there, for how long, and even their salaries. We can see how First Aid functioned at the Works, and perhaps gain an insight into how the Works as a whole functioned. There are also clues to the way the Works changed over time: in 1923 ownership changed from London and North Western Railway to the London Midland and Scottish Railway. This is accompanied by a change in the way accidents are recorded—a coincidence or a change in procedure?

Family History

Knowing how captivated I am by the names in these books, I can imagine how amazing a resource this would be for someone researching their family history. In the books used between the 1880s and 1920s, there are indices by surname for each book, meaning that detailed research needn’t even be that time-consuming. I’ve already stated elsewhere how these books are as much about people as they are about accidents. There’s a great deal of practical information here, including the names and ages of workers, where they worked, how long they’d worked there, what their salary was, sometimes where they lived. But there are also personal stories—who was the victim of some horseplay on the shop floor, who was temporarily employed as a munitions worker during the First World War. There are some touching details, like the person in 1944 who suffered from “D.A.H” (I’m guessing disordered action of the heart). They’re worried about their husband, who is a prisoner in Japan.

Milton Keynes Museum WWO/68, March 1944. Rest prescribed for D.A.H. from worry about husband imprisoned in Japan.

Women and the Works

This topic has fascinated me since I started, and more details are revealed each week. Each book is a little insight into women’s history: which job roles women were allowed to do, and in particular, how this changed during the world wars.

In the early record books, women were infrequently listed. Men were listed just by surname, but women were recorded as Miss/Mrs plus surname. This changes in 1941/42, as finally “sex” is listed alongside name (the women are still listed as Miss/Mrs). In the course of just a few years, women go from being listed a few times per book to multiple times on each page. Suddenly women at the works are no longer anomalies, but are playing intrinsic roles. This is surely indicative of more widespread changes in attitudes to the jobs women were able to do.

Milton Keynes Museum WWO/63, May 1942. Showing the addition of a column indicating the sex of the person being treated.

History of Medicine

Most of the information in these books is of course not just about railways, or people, but about the risks they faced, the accidents that inevitably occurred, and the way these were treated. It seems that nearly every malady or accident you could think of is listed in here, and these tell stories in themselves. Lead poisoning seemed a particular risk. You can tell what time of year it is just by whether there are more wasp stings or chills. You can study the various treatments offered, and even how these change over time. Warm olive oil for earache is an extremely common one, and who knew brandy was the way to combat an “attack of malaria”?

Looking at the accident record books over a long period of time, from the 1880s to the 1940s, there are a number of changes, which must be symptomatic of changes in management, ownership, or legislation. Between the 1880s and 1920s, a huge amount of detail is recorded for each accident, including lighting conditions, how long the person injured had been on duty, and a judgement on whether the incident was “accidental”. After the 1920s, far less information is recorded, and the type of incidents also changes—there are far more common maladies, like earache, toothache, and nausea, in addition to the lacerations and fractures one would expect from industrial accidents. The incidents listed become more what you might expect from a school matron than a railway works. In fact, from the 1940s, there are separate record books for illnesses and accidents. Is this because there were more dedicated medical staff on site? Changes to the medical benefits offered to employees? At this point the books start being called “Ambulance Room Records”—was there an actual ambulance on site? Ambulance trips themselves are infrequently mentioned in the record books. You can see that we’re in a bit of a catch-22 situation here—these accident record books can help us understand medical history, but you also need a basic understanding in order to interpret the books.

Milton Keynes Museum WWO/39, November 17th, 1930. Dose of brandy for an “attack of malaria”.

Anyone looking at these records will bring something new. One of my favourite uses of archives is as an inspiration for the visual art, like this incredible work on archives and landscape by Jeremy Bubb. Who knows what these personal histories concealed inside marbled book covers could inspire. I find it amazing that such specific records, even with no other context, can illuminate so much. What will the documents we take so much for granted today, the signing in books, the receipts, the post-it notes, tell future archivists about our lives?

Part One of Adventures in Archives: Milton Keynes Museum
Part Two of Adventures in Archives: Soundscapes and Tissue Paper
Milton Keynes Museum website

 

Adventures in Archives: Soundscapes and Tissue Paper

I have only been a volunteer for a few weeks, but I am already convinced that Milton Keynes Museum is an idyllic place to work. Sat in my ivory tower, poring over the intimate details of stubbed toes, lacerated fingers, and traumatic orchitis (yes, really), I am kept company by the unique soundscape of the museum. The rumble of excitement as the museum opens and children pile into the Victorian Garden below my window, the mellow oompahs and chiming melodies emanating from the music room a few rooms away from my own. I punctuate this soundtrack with a few interjections of my own whenever I encounter something particularly interesting, or, more often, when I need help.

Cover of Accident Record Book from 1909-1910 (Milton Keynes Museum, WWO/19)

This soundtrack accompanies me as I continue my work listing the accident record books of Wolverton Railway Works. Each of the books has been attended to and ordered by an unknown person, meaning that they’re roughly kept in chronological order, with the dates each book was in use written on a label on the front. The books themselves, dating from the late nineteenth century onwards, are quite fragile, with very thin pages, and disintegrating leather bindings. So someone has gone to great lengths to wrap each book in tissue paper. This is a mixed blessing. As we’ve all experienced, there’s a thrill to unwrapping an item in order to find out precisely what’s inside. But while these tissue paper parcels might have me thinking romantic and faintly idiotic thoughts like “making a present out of the past…”, in reality, it’s really annoying. I’m not sure how much protection this paper is giving since the books are kept in sturdy boxes. The tape used to secure the paper has sometimes been stuck to the books themselves, meaning I inevitably cause slight damage just trying to get at the books’ contents. I work in fear of those tiny ripping noises that accompany the unwrapping, especially as the pages themselves are tracing-paper thin.

 

Copperplate writing from 1919 (Milton Keynes Museum, WWO/29, p.194)

Once inside, the books are as far removed from my expectations of accident record books as could be. My own experience of accident record books normally involves illegible biro scrawls in a notebook from Poundland. But these books are, well, beautiful. Marbled covers, faded with age. Maroon leather bindings. Careful cursive lettering. It is clear that huge care went into creating these record books, not just in their appearance, but in the level of detail recorded: the number of hours someone was on duty before they were injured, what equipment they were supplied with, what lighting conditions there were. Was this detail essential for Wolverton Works to protect themselves against potential lawsuits and compensation claims? But if the books were purely functional, why make them beautiful? And despite their flimsy pages, it feels like these books were meant to last.

Front cover of an Accident Record Book from 1925-26 (Milton Keynes Museum, WWO/38)

As I continue listing the books, more questions than answers emerge. So far I’ve only covered about 30 years’ worth of books (38 records in total), so perhaps more will become clear as I go along. With each book consisting of 1000 pages, there’s certainly a lot of information to be unearthed.

Part One of Adventures in Archives: Milton Keynes Museum
Milton Keynes Museum website

 

 

 

Adventures in Archives: Milton Keynes Museum

Within the museum, there is a cellar. Within the cellar, there is a cupboard. Within the cupboard there are many boxes. Within these boxes there are books. And within these books? Well, within these books are listed the accidents that occurred at Wolverton Railway Works from the late 19th century onwards. Yep, Accident Record Books. Anti-climactic? You’d be forgiven for thinking so. I have no special interest in railways, beyond a long-held love of The Railway Children. I have no particular knowledge of accidents or their records (although I am insufferably proud I recently trained in First Aid). I certainly didn’t expect then, that within a few hours spent with these books, I’d be addicted. The thing is, these books aren’t just about railways, or accidents. They’re about people. Everything about these books, from the different hands painstakingly or hurriedly writing in the pages, to the accounts of the accidents themselves, tell stories about people.

For the last couple of weeks I’ve been entrusted with listing these books, in the hope that Milton Keynes Museum can gain a better understanding of what their archive holds. This basically entails me going through each accident record book to figure out when it was in use, what details are included in its pages, and giving it a reference number. I also have to be aware of who created them, which for the most part, at the moment, is the London and North Western Railway Company.

I’ve been interested in working in archives for a long time, but this is my first real taste. Thanks to the patience of the Museum’s Archivist, I’ve already learned a huge amount. This includes really basic things, like the need to support pages when you’re turning them, or how to use a book sofa to protect the book’s spine. From my experience cataloguing medieval manuscripts as part of my Masters degree I already knew wearing white gloves (unless you’re working with photographs or need to protect yourself from dirt) was a useless fantasy perpetuated by the media. But I didn’t know that archivists had an ideal pencil. It’s a 2B—dark enough to see, soft enough to erase without leaving a mark. There’s a lot to think about, but this at least is easy for me to remember, thanks to my childhood obsession with a rhyme by Spike Milligan:

Said Hamlet to Ophelia,
I’ll draw a sketch of thee.
What kind of pencil shall I use?
2B or not 2B?

I also have to be reigned back on my enthusiasm when it comes to bits of paper. Coming across a crumpled bit of paper tucked between the leaves, I cautiously unfolded it, and found it was covered in scrawlings of various numbers. What could it be? Vital statistics about the lives or limbs lost at the works? A code concealing railway secrets? It was a bookmark, and I was gently dissuaded from creating a separate record for it.

Through these books, I’ve seen 30 years of history from a unique perspective. I find myself lingering over the pages in search of particular names, or trying to decipher faded ink to figure out exactly what happened in a certain incident. I’m already getting attached to various characters who crop up more often than others. I never particularly understood the craze for genealogy, but now I’m totally hooked—and these people aren’t even my family.

Part Two of Adventures in Archives: Soundscapes and Tissue Paper
For more information about Milton Keynes Museum, please visit their website.