In my last post I should have explained that some of my fury at having to check again every quotation and fact in the typescript came from the necessity it entailed of taking scores of manuscripts out of George and Kittie’s archive for the umpteenth time, using them, and putting them back. This is not good for them.
They have given me
their dust: my fingers leave them
this flash patina.
I am still in awe of the privilege of being the first person to work with these papers since they were deposited in a Scottish attic soon after Kittie’s death in 1950. The last person to read them all before me was Kittie herself at ‘White Raven’ in the 1940s.
To begin with I found them dusty, musty; I always had to scrub my hands after working with them. And they had strange, powerful smells. Gradually, these resolved themselves into George’s smoking, a subtle camphor that Kittie favoured, and the chemical used to disinfect Archie Ripley’s papers after his death from tuberculosis.
These smells have accompanied me — I could even say have inspired me — throughout the writing of the book about these people. I also believed in keeping the papers as Kittie left them, down to the last rusty paperclip .
But after the lids have been taken off the archive boxes so often, the folders opened so often, the letters and documents spread out so often to read, I have to inhale very deeply to catch those smells still; but I do.
His cigarette smoke
fades and the pressed rose crumbles.
They go from me now.
(The rose was sent to Kittie from Lucknow by a British soldier in 1917.)
Smells of the archive
are his petite madeleine,
bringing back lost lives.
Smell … so evocative, calling on our distant memories. I remember sniffing pomegranate bubble bath and suddenly transporting back 45 years in time to see pomegranates at my great aunt’s flat. But smell links us physically to the past as well, as active and vital molecules float upwards from their past embodiments and into our noses. Sadness sometimes, as the molecules flee and the smell fades with all else … leaving words and their semantics to last the longest. Thanks once more, Patrick, for writing your blog for all of us.
Another excellent post, vividly capturing an evocative moment that links us to long forgotten times.
Let us all take a deep breath – er – before we waft away entirely on a fluffy cloud of sentiment. I feel I would be failing in my professional duty as an archivist if I didn’t make one or two hard-nosed points here. My sincere apologies in advance if I come across as a bit sniffy…
Patrick, you are spot on in your desire to keep the Calderon archive exactly as Kittie arranged it. As soon as a person’s papers are reorganized or added to, they cease to be an archive at all, but that much more sterile entity, a ‘collection’. Kittie however did not purchase rusty paperclips especially for the purpose of leaving damaging marks on Archie and George’s precious letters! You therefore should set about procuring some brass replacements forthwith. (Readers at home, this goes for you too. And if any of you are using rubber bands to hold your treasured bundles together…. Please don’t; in 50 years they will be like fossilized worms glued fast to the paper. What you need is cotton tape.)
Clearly the conditions in that Scottish attic were rather on the damp side. And I’m guessing also rather dusty. Your description of inhaling the aroma of George Calderon’s cigarettes (or pipe) is wonderfully, beautifully, evocative – Archie’s death bed too. But no matter how one’s brain interprets it, the mustiness that pervades archival documents is usually just good old-fashioned dirt, and the top notes are soot, and mould.
I like the sound of those archive boxes and folders. These really are the ideal way to store and transport archives; they come in all sorts of shapes and sizes and can be made-to-measure to house individual items, books, and albums. Archive boxes offer valuable protection against sudden changes in air temperature and humidity, and are an additional line of defence against smoke and water if disaster strikes. Unlike those highly-acidic brown manila envelopes that were so favoured by the Victorians and Edwardians, modern archival packaging is pH neutral. (Readers again: if your old letters are turning brown even though you keep them in the dark, then your conditions are too acidic. Rectify this before the paper becomes brittle and friable.) It shouldn’t really be harming the Calderon letters to get them out and look at them from time to time – a change of air is as beneficial for documents as it is for us humans, and you can check that none of those mould spores has sprung to life.
Oh dear. While I am on my archivist’s soap box, I must just mention photographs too. They are the most fragile and vulnerable documents of all. Quite likely Kittie stuffed hers into brown envelopes – it’s what most people did in 1940. If those within the Calderon archive are not already in individual polyester sleeves, may I recommend these too? The inert plastic allows each photograph to be examined without being touched; it stops previously bent corners from snapping off; and it prevents any risk of abrasion to the surface of the image. (Readers: Not in possession of any Edwardian photographs? Then think back to the 1970s, 80s, 90s… Do you have early colour prints, stuck so lovingly into those albums with the sticky plastic pages? Nasty. You will never retrieve the original colours, but if you have the negative strips in the back of a cupboard get them out and have them digitized. This service is offered at all the High Street photography shops. And then – whether you print them again, create a photo-book, or send them to the cloud – MAKE A RECORD OF WHO THE PEOPLE ARE! Your descendants, or your future biographer, or the poor neighbourhood archivist who gets to write the catalogue, will be very, very grateful indeed.)
Thank you all who read this comment to the end. I got my husband to check it for me. He said, ‘No wonder you’re such a wow at parties!’
I am exceedingly grateful to Clare, who is Archivist of Trinity College, Oxford, for devoting so much time, space and energy to setting out how papers from the past should be conserved. This is all the more necessary now that owners are increasingly deciding to keep family papers in their own care — a development that I personally support. I can assure Clare that the measures she describes were long ago adopted where the Calderon Papers are concerned, with the single exception of the rusty paperclips, which will doubtless one day be removed by an unsentimental archivist!