Happy as a pig in muck – Archives, archives and more archives! Part 1

This week I went very much back to basics and found myself in the archive, both in a physical and digital sense, conducting original primary research. I spent the best part of the week examining documents, some of which were over 200 years old, and loved every single minute of it – well, mostly, but all in good time! There was a sense of urgency in my attempts to plan as many archive visits as possible as I have a couple of big ‘events’ coming up in the next few months and as we all know, early preparation – especially given that I’m starting the PhD in September – is always a good idea! I do slightly feel as if I’ve bitten off more than I can chew, however I do tend to thrive under the pressure and I’m really excited about each of the projects!

So, I started this little research binge at Tower Hamlets Local History Library and Archive which was my first experience of a Borough Archive, unless you equate it to a County archive, then Surrey History Centre would be awarded that accreditation. But I digress. But how did I end up there one might ask? And in fact a couple of people have asked me that very question, as it’s a bit off the beaten track and not the most obvious choice to have made.

Well it was in fact the result of an enquiry placed with the Museum of London Docklands in search of material that might shed further light on the life and business of Charles Jamrach.  As part of my ongoing research I really want to try and figure out which London Docks Jamrach was importing into and whether any manifests survive that might tell us a bit more about the transportation of exotic cargo from ‘source’ to the ‘middle man/distributor’. It was therefore through correspondence with the archivist at the Museum of London Docklands that the suggestion was made that I make enquires with Tower Hamlets Library and Archive, as it was explained to me they hold material that focuses expressly on the Borough of Tower Hamlets. So this is exactly what I did and having received a positive response that they do hold some material, off I went, fortunately on a Saturday which meant no need to take a day of work!

 It transpires that the Archive and Library is open on the 1^st and 3^rd Saturday of the month, which for others in a position like I am is a huge benefit. Generally speaking, most archives tend to run 9-5 hours and so if you’re working, conducting research requires you taking holiday. But not in this case. The discovery of Saturday opening hours, especially in relation to a small and locally funded archive, that I expect only attracts a certain niche of researchers, was therefore a hugely pleasant surprise.

What I found was an archive with a lot of character but one I couldn’t help feel harks back to a bygone age. There was lots of wood cladding and retrograde steel shelfs and I wasn’t overly enthusiastic about the cataloguing system or lack thereof - an online version is coming soon which is fantastic, but as a researcher you are completely dependent on the assistance of the archive staff and of course, they can’t always know what you are looking for, because half the time you don’t really know until you find it!

I suppose I’ve been very spoilt in what I’ve experienced in other archives before now, as they’ve tended to be the larger, well-funded ones. For example, I am used to drawing up a list with reference numbers of what I’d like to see before I turn up, or the very least will have arranged this with an archivist beforehand. However that didn’t happen in this case. I was just told to turn up but then when I arrived, I was asked to provide references – catch 22. There is also a further complication which has arisen through subsequent correspondence because referencing on the original material isn’t particularly clear and it’s therefore been difficult for me to supply an accurate reference number for an item I’ve requested a copy of.

I feel pretty useless being so vague about it, as it’s normally something I am very particular about. I want to be able to go back to the original material and re-source what I found, but I also want others to be able to do the same thing if and when they need to – to both corroborate and question my work. And this was also made difficult by the fact that in a number of cases, the material I was looking consisted of newspaper clippings, cut out from the original newspapers and merely stuck to pieces of card, not necessarily with their provenance labelled anywhere. I found this all quite prohibiting as a researcher, so while I may have found some great material, and some pictures I’m very pleased to have found (we now have a face for the name for example), I’m a little hesitant to use them, as I’m not entirely sure where they’ve come from - at least not at the moment. All in all, it felt a little haphazard if I’m honest, but, on a positive note we did get there in the end and the archivist was very helpful in producing a lot more material that I had anticipated being available, so all in all it was a very beneficial visit and I left on a bit of a high it has to be said.

I also had my first microfiche experience at Tower Hamlets Archive which was simply terrifying. Never having used it before I did ask for a tutorial, which the archivist was very happy to provide, but the whole process still scared the life out of me and I had horrible visions of pushing the button too fast and the film bursting into flames and being lost forever. I’m not sure I’d race to use it again – I’d much rather stick to digital archives or those with pages I can turn!

So high on the success from earlier in the week I then headed off to another, arguably more well-known and well used archive, where I spent the next two days. The first day was brilliant. I was very impressed with the archive, the organisation and the staff who were very friendly and accommodating and who helped to create a really nice environment in which to work. As sometimes happens, the material was not all relevant or what I had been hoping to find, but I did find a few nice surprises and had a bit of a refresher in reading 19^th century italicised handwriting. It felt really good to be back in the archive, in a more traditional sense – it had been too long, so all in all I had a really nice and productive day.

However, the second day, or rather, the last half an hour of that second day, was a completely different story. When it hit shift change we ended up with a bit of a jobsworth on the desk and I left feeling completely enraged. The demeanour of that particular archivist is exactly what can put ordinary members of the public off going to archives and what helps to preserve the image that archives are only for the use of the ‘elite’ and members of the ‘academy’. This particular archivist didn’t attempt to educate, but reprimanded in quite an unpleasant tone. Hands up, my original set up wasn’t as it should be, I did have part of the file (a corner) hanging over the edge of the desk, and rightly so she told me to place it more centrally on the desk – fine, I don’t have a problem with that. What I do have a problem with is her both doing it for me and the tone that she adopted. Teach me, don’t lecture me.

But the second thing that also really got me was being told that I couldn’t hold up the documents or angle them ever so slightly in an attempt to decipher, what is quite difficult handwriting to read. I am a historian. I appreciate that documents are fragile and I didn’t take the decision to lift that particular document lightly. Had it been fragile, or tearing or weak in any way I wouldn’t have chosen to look it at that way. I assessed what was in front of me and reacted suitably. And I think that particular archivist needs to appreciate that. As visitors to the archive, we’re not all inferior because we don’t hold the title of archivist.

Documents like those I had been viewing, have been kept to be studied and that’s all I was doing. There was no man handling, just holding it lightly at different angles – and the insistence that they could offer a magnifying glass, I’m afraid, wasn’t go to make that task any easier. The size of the text wasn’t the issue, but had I been asked rather than pre-judged, I might have been able to explain that.

I know archives have rules and guidelines for a reason, but I also think the value in their existence is the use people are able to make of them. Provided people are respectful and careful with the material they handle, we shouldn’t be reprimanded for how we hold a document. It’s a bit backward and old fashioned for my liking - I wouldn’t be surprised if this same archivist favoured the white glove approach as well!

Just why I’m on my soapbox - this particular individual even prohibited a visitor taking a picture of the library. Not specific items or artefacts, just the room as an entity. I mean come on?! Archives shouldn’t be closeted, mysterious entities shut off from the world. They can offer so much, but people need to know they are there in the first place. If anything, that’s what I took most from my experience of Tower Hamlets Archive. I needed to know it was there before it could be of any use to me and what use it was?! The whole thing just really grated on me – especially as it didn’t appear to be the archives’ ethos, just the ethos of that particular archivist.

I can’t help but think, if I felt intimidated having used numerous archives in the past, how would someone inexperienced feel? It really would be enough to put some people off and it continues to promote this elitist approach to archival study and that is something I really resent. I think so many organisations have come so far in accepting ‘modern’ historical practice and in welcoming those from outside the academy, but some and some individuals, have yet to catch up with that philosophy. So yes, you could say that particular archivist put a right downer on the day.

To be continued…

“...In hearts at peace, under an English heaven”: Cowleaze Woods and its secret tragedy

Elle:

 

I based the name of my blog on the childhood game ‘I-spy’ because I really believe if you are tuned in to the world around you, all you have to do is look and you will find something that has historical significance or a tale of the past to tell. This belief has certainly held true and last weekend provided a great example, for we stumbled (in my case literally) upon a memorial in a place I never would have imagined to find one. 

I spent the weekend with friends in Oxford and we decided to head for a country walk in an area of woodland known as Cowleaze Wood, famous for its annual blanketing of bluebells. As we strolled along, Katy - Oxfordshire resident and our ‘guide’ to the local area - recalled how in the very woodland we were walking there was a memorial to the crew of a Halifax bomber LW579 that crashed in the wood when returning from a bombing attack on Nuremburg during the Second World War. I was extremely surprised by this revelation not least because shortly after this recollection she proceeded to point out the very place and the memorial that has been erected in memory of the 7 crew members who died.

The tragic event is marked by an understated memorial stone and small information panel, with additional information having been attached to a nearby tree - I’m guessing by a local history enthusiast or perhaps relative of one of the casualties. The information panel reads as follows:

‘On 31^st March 1944 the Halifax bomber LW 579 crashed here, killing all seven members of the crew. Their names are inscribed on the stone. They had been on a bombing raid on Nuremburg in East Germany, one of the 1000 planes that took part in the raid.

Contrary to the weather forecast there was brilliant moonlight that night and the planes were attacked by German fighter planes and anti-aircraft guns. Tragically, having survived thousands of miles flown across Europe, they crashed here when they were so nearly home.’

As I sat at work on Friday, watching the commemorative ceremony at the cenotaph and honoured the two minutes silence in remembrance of V.E. Day, I couldn’t help but think about these men. Seven men whose individual contributions and deaths are included in the total figure of military and civilian victims of the Second World War (c.450,000 in Britain). It is all too easy to forget the individual sacrifice in favour of the national one but this memorial made me stop and think about each person as an individual, something I, and I’m sure many of us don’t do often enough beyond perhaps, our own families.

It was quite an odd experience being stood in that woodland. In a way it felt quite haunting, walking upon the very ground which had witnessed this catastrophe. It was the middle of nowhere and I was left wondering, how far was the nearest hospital? Would help have come in time to have given the crew at least some hope? Was it immediate or did some time pass before the site was discovered? They were all rather morbid questions that began running through my mind and questions that I’ve never really found myself considering before. With the legacy of the Blitz for example, you don’t tend to see sites where the destruction is still evident and so aren’t really provoked to ask these sorts of questions. The 70+ years since have paved the way for redevelopment and rebuilding and there are very few ‘battlefields’ on UK shores. The only places I can think of that really evoke similar feelings for me here in the UK, are military cemeteries such as Brookwood; sites which bring the enormity of the sacrifice and cost of war home in a really powerful way.

The memorial in Cowleaze wood was in a place that you would least expect to find one, unless you are unfamiliar with the event of course. I suppose, rather naively, I’d never really considered before that sites like this exist in Britain and I think perhaps that’s what I found so poignant about the site. That, and also the fact that it hasn’t been forgotten and that the crew are still remembered – the wreaths and crosses by the memorial providing striking evidence of that.

Finding this memorial prompted me to again look beyond what I know of World War Two and to consider another angle of the conflict; the military casualties lost on home soil. It was rather overwhelming to think that in this small area of Oxfordshire woodland, these men are still remembered for the sacrifice they made in defending our country, in such an intimate and understated way.

Katy: http://publichistorymusings.blogspot.co.uk/

As I have said in other blog posts, history tends to jump out at you when you least expect it. Despite walking in Cowleaze Woods from a young age, it was only a year and a half ago that my family told me about the memorial to the men who tragically died while returning home from their mission. I had drafted a blog post immediately after this discovery but deadlines and Christmas festivities meant I postponed its release. I am grateful I did as it has led to this collaboration of views and insights (plus double the exposure!)

I am unsure as to how many people local or otherwise know of the memorial; it certainly is off the beaten track for dog walkers and nature lovers. As a ‘local’, the memorial reminds me that the Second World War did not just happen abroad or in the cities; my place of picnics and den building is a public site of commemoration dedicated to those who tragically died on their way home. 
At the memorial itself, there is an information sheet pinned to a tree detailing the events of the night. I have summarised what it says here:

The MH-V crew had already survived nineteen missions in which 529 heavy-duty bombers had been lost. For this mission, Sergeant Kelly replaced Flying Officer K King, who usually flew with the crew, as King had come down with a case of shingles. This would prove a blessing in disguise as it spared him from the fate of his comrades. The crew were returning from their mission and were aiming to reach RAF Benson for an emergency landing, suggesting it may have been damaged. Either the aircraft succumbed to the damage sustained or the pilot was unaware of the height of the hill, resulting in a collision with the trees and the craft’s explosion on impact at 5:20 am on 31^st March 1944.

Information about the crew added to a tree

Without this additional information present at the site, the details of the crash would remain unknown. Despite being graphic, this information helps us to imagine the destruction, which occurred in the peaceful woods. More importantly, it allows us to feel connected to the men who died rather than simply seeing a stone monument for those long gone. 

As Elle has said, it is easy to focus on the national struggle rather than considering an individual’s experience. While watching the BBC’s Remembering Victory, I was struck by Bruce Forsyth’s story of the distinct lack of closure experienced by his family due to the label ‘missing’ assigned to his brother in the RAF. It has made me think of those families who survived; having to adjust to the spare chair at the dinner table, knowing that no more treasured letters would arrive. While we look back and celebrate VE Day, let’s take a moment to reflect how close to home tragedy struck and how fortunate we are to live in a time of relative peace in this country.

Blanket of Bluebells