The handwritten archive
Last week as I sat in the Search Room at
the John Gray Centre I reached a realisation about this project. The epiphany
was brought about when I opened a wallet containing correspondence relating to
the ‘Haddington Inspector of the Poor, 1837 – 1854’. It was not the subject of
these letters that proved so key, although this in itself is fascinating and I
made a note to return and examine it further, rather it was the beautiful
visual quality of the handwritten envelopes and letters, on backgrounds of pale
muted browns, greys and blues, with weathered and dog-eared corners.
I realised that the contents of this wallet
represented what I had expected to find when I began work with an ‘archive’: it
is a document of correspondence which details a social history, but also a
historical record of the handwritten document, something so rare in our society
of emails, text messages and mobile phones. A sample of handwriting reflects
the identity of a person; the ebbs and flows of the line work describe the
author and create their permanent imprint on a page. A lost art perhaps, or a
momentary preoccupation with a more relevant technology, there is something
fascinating about this kind of artifact.
This set of correspondence is by no means
the only example of this in the archive; other intriguing examples include the
Autograph book and some personal record books and diaries. As a visual artist I
wanted to make use of these colours, marks and textures within the drawings I
make of the county, layering up East Lothian’s physical history with
illustrations of life in the county.
Fish & Chips in Cockenzie
This month I have also been reading
‘Olivia’s Story’ by Mary Contini, which I found in the Local History Collection
at the John Gray Centre. This book documents the story and history of the
Crolla family as they travelled from southern Italy to make their home in
Scotland. The book is a fascinating record of the life of Italians emigrating
and creating a life here, with particular focus on the Edinburgh shops they ran.
I was particularly excited to reach a
passage about the Di Ciacca family who took over and ran a business in Cockenzie
selling fish and chips and ice cream. The Italians were met with an initial
wariness from Scottish families, however this business became the heart of the
fishing community there in the 1930s, as not only a supplier, and often source
of credit when needed, to the local families, but also as a meeting place after
a day of fishing. The family also took advantage of thriving tourist industry
in East Lothian at the time, cycling ice cream barrels down to local swimming
pool and promenades to sell their wares.
The archive is full of stories of this
kind, such as the strawberry pickers in Ormiston who had to pick and deliver
their strawberries to Edinburgh on the first train of the day, or the Fisherrow
wives I described last month. My challenge now is to do these memories justice
in the work I create before the end of the project.
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