Tuesday 22 May 2018

A Hard Days Work...


Another hard day at work over.  
I say 'hard' but much of that was due to being asleep when I arrived just before ten.  It was incredibly difficult to waken this morning and coffee did not help.  Only when the cleaner man was leaving and stopped to chat did the adrenalin kick in.  Had he not stopped I may well have drifted into stupor and fallen under the desk.
However as we spoke a lad did arrive asking for information re maps.  This was more interesting than the exhibition.  The trouble with maps I find is that once I begin looking at them I cannot stop.  For some reason pouring over an old map from fifty or so years ago is really interesting.  I just did it now to ensure Old Maps had the map I thought he was looking for and I almost forgot myself again.  So much has change since 1961, the basic layout is similar but so many changes within that have occurred.  Change is not always good but it is inevitable.  Last time I looked at my old part of Edinburgh on Google Maps I was shocked to see the changes, some things have been there for years and have disappeared!  Other things remain the same but that is not always a good thing.  


Then followed an hour, or so it seemed like, with a woman wishing to talk about her dead relative.  He was one who fell during the Great War and this lass was supposed to arrive several months ago but chose not to.  Today she turned up unannounced for a chat re the letters and material concerning her forebear.  As the curator was elsewhere I was with her for a while and made clear I wanted all she had, but of course the curator decides whether we can or cannot hold such as this.  Once the two chatted for ten minutes, well about thirty as she can talk this lass, she can talk, it was decided she ought to discuss with the Records office and the Regimental Museum what they thought about it all.  Naturally I told her lies re the record office mice, the museums lack of care and that WE ought to have this stuff, especially me.  However after discussion she has arranged meetings with the others and I strongly suspect the material, letters, stories, medals, etc, will be with us soon.  I hope so or the curator will hear about this.
By the time all this had finished it was time to go home.  Such a hard life...

 

3 comments:

the fly in the web said...

I hope that you get the archive and I too love old maps...the changes fascinate me!

Jenny Woolf said...

Maps really are very interesting. Trouble is I am so brainwashed these days by google that when looking at a map of say 1901, I'm itching to find a button for Street View. I think that I prefer old photos over maps, though. There is a great fascination in looking at what people really did see in those days.

Adullamite said...

Fly, The changes are fascinating. What remains is also surprising.

Jenny, Old photos do enhance maps. I sometimes look them up also.