Collecting Memories – Accidental Acquisition

Another Close Look at Our Collections Journey

The collections journey at the Wee Museum of Memory progresses every week and adapts all the time to make sure that our objects are carefully and efficiently archived. This process has evolved many times since the museum’s staff and volunteers began this official process earlier this year. The system now in place has been developed to efficiently and thoroughly comb through and archive the thousands of objects held by the museum. Our archival system is a multistep process that relies on the combination of the unique skills of the museum’s staff and volunteers. The first step of the process is what we call the Treasure Hunt. The Treasure Hunt process makes sure that we carefully match our objects in storage or on display with the donation forms completed when donors generously donated their objects to the museum.

This step gets many of the museum’s volunteers involved, especially those who, from life experience, are able to identify the make and model of, say, a record player or already know what a cobbler’s shoehorn looks like. Volunteers search for and locate objects in our collections so that they can be connected to their donation record as the first step in our archival process. Many of these volunteers have enough life experience to easily recognise all kinds of objects from the past just by looking at them and are indispensable to the Treasure Hunt process and the whole collections journey. Beginning with this first step and throughout the whole process objects are physically handled and examined. It was because of this hands-on examination that the object highlighted by this edition of the blog was discovered.

Accidental Acquisition

We’ve all heard the common saying, “One man’s rubbish is another’s treasure.” Read on to discover an object that has proved to be a treasure trove of information for us at the museum. Discarded by its previous owner, it was hidden inside another object, and only recently discovered by one of our volunteers.

What’s an acquisition?

In museum terminology, acquisitions are items obtained through donations, purchases, or loans. These are the objects that museums hold in their collections and display in their exhibitions.

Last month, our collections volunteers processed an optiscope through our archival system. An optiscope, often called a magic lantern, is an early version of a slide projector. It works by shining a light through painted glass slides. Though these devices were first invented in the 17th century, the one in our collection is much more modern, likely dating from the early 20th century. The optiscope comes inside a large metal case with a couple of detachable components of the lantern inside. One of those components is a delicate light bulb called the Royal Ediswan Lamp. The bulb is still wrapped in its original packaging, which explains that it is a gas-filled bulb. The side of the packaging reads in two places, “IMPORTANT In view of the paper shortage, this wrapper should not be thrown away or destroyed, but should be handed to the local authority or organisation responsible for salvaging paper.” This packaging is partly made of corrugated cardboard, designed to give some padding to the bulb.

One of the previous owners of this optiscope decided to wrap a newspaper around the bulb before placing it inside the case. This was likely a practical decision, making use of whatever materials were readily available to protect the fragile bulb. It appears that the owner of this optiscope made conscious choices to conserve paper, as the writing on the bulb’s original packaging asks.

While carefully examining the optiscope case as part of our cataloguing process, one of our volunteers discovered the newspaper tucked around the bulb. It turned out to be the Wednesday, 13 October 1948 edition of The Scotsman, and is covered front and back with advertisements and story coverages from that week in 1948. Though discarded and repurposed as packaging, for us, this newspaper provides a serendipitous glimpse of life in October 1948. Hidden away for decades and then brought back to light by chance, it’s like an accidental time capsule.

The edition discusses many of the major events around the world and important developments in local politics at the time. However, it also includes some very interesting, smaller stories that would not be featured in most history books, which we have decided to highlight in this blog. Take a look at some of those stories below!

“Policewoman Commended Decoyed Dangerous Criminal “

“A 34-year-old policewoman, who acted as a decoy to bring about the arrest of a man who was subsequently sentenced to four years penal servitude for attacking two women, has received the King’s commendation for brave conduct. She is Policewoman Mabel Ashley, of the County Borough of Tynemouth Police, and the award is “for services when effecting the arrest of a dangerous criminal,” stated yesterday’s London Gazette. At the trial at Newcastle Assizes, Policewoman Ashley said that she went alone in civilian clothes to a dockside road where a man had previously attacked and wounded two women. A man came up and, taking her by the arm, started to lead her away. When she saw a police inspector approaching on a bicycle she arrested the man.”

Women were only allowed to join the police force in 1916, when the “Police Act of 1916” was passed. A woman named Emily Miller had joined the Glasgow Police Force as a “Lady’s Assistant” and was not paid or uniformed. The first woman to offically join the police force in Scotland was Jean Thomas who joined the police force in Dundee in 1918, though it was not until 1924 that woman were granted the power of arrest. And not until 1968 that women were allowed to be a part of the force if they were married, prior to this married women were barred. So we can see here in this 1948 edition of the Scotsman, that Policewoman Mabel Ashley was using her right to arrest in order to take down this dangerous man, but she would not have been allowed to be married and hold her job with the police.

“Rising Generation ‘Danger’ that They May Be Non-Smokers”

“The ‘distinct danger of young people growing up without acquiring the smoking habit‘ because of the present high prices was referred to by Mr. Percy Belcher, general secretary of the Tobacco Workers Union, at a Liverpool meeting last night to protest against the tobacco tax. During the past 18 months, he said, the numbers employed in the tobacco industry had been reduced by 3000, and they could not face the future with any optimism.”

In the year this edition was written, 1948, 82% of men in the UK smoked; this was the highest peak in percentage of UK smokers ever recorded. While the Tobacco Workers Union was clearly pessimistic about the future of tobacco users, smoking did not begin to steadily decline until the 1970s. However, 1948 was the year that Epidemiologist Richard Doll joined the British Medical Research Council, and it was this partnership that would later definitively link smoking to lung cancer.

” Farmer Attacked with Axe rescues assailant from flames”

“Mr. George Glen, a 58-year-old poultry farmer, of Strathkinness, near St. Andrews, after being seriously injured in a struggle with a man at his farm yesterday afternoon, twice pulled his assailant from a blazing hut. Mr. Glen, a well-known speed motor cyclist in his younger days, was, it is alleged, struck on the head six times with an axe. Other members of his family who grappled with the man were also hurt. After the attack, the man rushed into Mr. Glen’s house with a double-barrelled shotgun and fired two shots which embedded in the ceiling. He then broke a window in the room and jumped through on to the ground and ran to a fuel shed where petrol and paraffin were stored. The man struck a match, which was knocked from his hand by Mr. Glen, but succeeded in lighting another, which he threw into the fuel store. He then flung himself on top of the flames. Despite his serious injury, Mr. Glen twice pulled the man from the burning shed and tackled the fire with extinguishers. Mr. Glen’s son, Ian, aged 16, who witnessed the attack, had meantime telephoned for the police, who took the unconscious man to the St. Andrews Memorial Hospital, where his condition was last night stated to be serious. Mr Glen had stitches inserted in a number of head wounds. His wife was also struck with the axe when she rushed to her husband’s assistance. Mr. Glen was on the point of leaving, Mrs. Josef Pawlici, and her two children, aged 5 and 13 months, with the intention of taking them by car to St. Andrews when the attack was made on him.”

“london and edinburgh have most ‘phones”

“At March 31 1948, there were 23.2 telephones per 100 of population in London — the highest figure in the country. Edinburgh, with 14 telephones per 100 people, was the next highest. The figure for Glasgow was 8.6.”

Telephones were still considered a luxury at the time this paper was printed, as the reported number of phones per person clearly shows. 1948 was the first year that the ‘999’ emergency number was rolled out for use in all major towns and cities in the UK.

“400 Women volunteers for nutritional test”

Nearly 400 young women have volunteered to act as “guinea pigs” in a nutritional experiment similar to that recently undertaken by 100 men medical students who lived on tablets for five days without food or drink. Dr H. E. Heitz, inventor of the tablets, said last night, that he proposed to experiment with 120 women in about six weeks time. This experiment also will be conducted at Marsh Court, Stockbridge, Hants. The report of the specialists on the first experiment confirms that the men suffered no ill-effects. Dr. Heitz said that many foreign Governments had placed orders for the tablets which will run into many hundreds of thousands of pounds.”

During WWII, the idea of finding tablets or pills that could sustain soldiers and those back at home on rations without needing to eat food was a very popular, though never an actually successful, endeavor. Many types of pills were manufactured to give soldiers a carbohydrate boost, though they did not provide enough calories to sustain a person on them alone. Horlicks Malted Milk Lunch Tablets were made of wheat, barley, and dried milk powder and were put into pilots’ emergency kits and handed out to athletes during the 1948 Olympics, though these also could not completely substitute food.

This accidental acquisition, though practically discarded at some point by someone wishing to protect their optiscope equipment, provides an interesting snapshot of some of the everyday events and conversations of the past. The stories reported in this newspaper reveal some of the dramatic ways in which the world has changed and the progress made in less than 100 years. Through reading this edition we see that women were already making significant strides in the workplace in 1948, and some women, such as Mabel Ashley from the story, were even succeeding in predominantly male roles like the police force. Today, almost everyone in Edinburgh carries a mobile phone in their back pocket, but in 1948, The Scotsman reported that there were only 14 telephones for every 100 people in Edinburgh.

However, we also want to acknowledge some of the unfortunate, harmful attitudes present in this newspaper, such as the column titled “The Red Peril,” which contains racist ideas about Asian and African countries. Or the “Weddings at St Giles'” column, where the writer uses a derogatory term to describe a shade of brown a bride wore. Reading stories like those is important because they expose the harm that was done in the past and serve as an important reminder to continue to progress away from those attitudes.

In the world of museum collections, accidental finds such as these can be incredibly exciting for those examining the objects. They provide an opportunity to feel more connected to the era from which the object originated, and help to bring into sharper focus the reality that these objects were once owned by real people. We hope you enjoyed reading about this accidental acquisition and sharing in some of our excitement. Keep an eye out for our next blog issue coming soon!

by Matilda Whitelock

Matilda

Collecting Memories – Beauty Under the Floorboards

A Close Look at Our Collections Journey

One of the many exciting projects currently ongoing at the Wee Museum of Memory is our journey towards accreditation! A big part of this journey is the organization and improvement of the museum’s collection of historical artifacts. Around 10,000 museum objects must be catalogued, labelled, and stored, a process that requires each object to be physically handled by the museum’s staff and volunteers. As of this post, we have successfully processed over 700 objects in just a few short months! As objects work their way through our cataloguing process, many pique the interest of the staff and volunteers who are working through our collection and handling each object.

Some of the objects spark our interest because they seem particularly unfamiliar, a relic of a bygone era, while others, for the opposite reason, remind us of our own past. Others have stories attached, provided by their donors, often filled with mysteries that inspire curiosity about those who lived before us. This blog series is designed to give each of those objects a space to shine while also letting you in on our progress towards accreditation!

Want to explore our collections from home?

We’re working hard to improve our collections and store our objects properly so they are available for future generations too! However, at the Wee Museum of Memory, we don’t want objects to be stashed away in storage shelves, but instead we try to put most of our collection out on the museum floor so you can come see them in person. Now we are also moving our collections online. This way, our objects are even more accessible. You can explore and reminisce through our objects from home, and also take a peek at what we have in storage through our online collection. If you want to look at the objects we have uploaded so far, click below!

Click here!

At first glance, many of the objects held in the Wee Museum of Memory’s collection might look like something you’d find at the back of your grandmother’s cupboard, or mentioned in one of her childhood stories, rather than the glamorous artifacts you might initially expect in museum collections. When you think about museum collections, many of us might conjure up something out of the films Indiana Jones or Night at the Museum, images of huge warehouses stacked with rows of huge wooden crates filled with priceless artifacts. Those films portray a dazzling picture of museum archives and collections, and while this sentiment certainly captures how incredibly interesting museum collections can be, in the real world, impressive, luxurious artifacts really only reveal the history of those who could afford to own them.

The artifacts featured in this Hollywood-afied image of a museum collection, like golden goblets, bejewelled crowns, and imposing swords, tell the stories of history’s powerful. If we want to hear other stories, those of the less powerful and less well-known, those of everyday people, we have to take a look at the ‘ordinary’ objects that made up their lives. These are the kind of objects that the Wee Museum of Memory keeps both on display and in its collections. Our objects are often acquired with specific local memories attached and inspire our museum visitors, who might connect these objects to their own past, to reminisce. These ‘normal’ objects once sat in kitchens, school rooms, workplace benches, or other ‘ordinary’ spaces, and witnessed the happy days and the rough times of the everyday people who owned them.

Beauty Under the Floorboards

Five boxes of hair product held in our collections

The first objects that we’ve chosen to look at are five tiny cardboard boxes filled with sets of glass hair dye bottles. While they might appear quite unassuming at first, when you look a little closer, they are almost like little windows, which allow us to glimpse a piece of daily life in the past through them. Surprisingly, these little boxes of hair product have quite a mysterious story attached to them, a story we can reimagine if we peer through them into the past.

Four of the boxes are L’Oreal Imedia Hair Tint. While L’Oreal is a recognizable modern brand, one look reveals that these particular dyes come from a time long gone by. The four L’Oreal Imedia boxes and dyes date from the 1930s. The fifth box, Nusheen Instant Retouch Liquid, is a lesser-known brand that also dates from the 1930s. Curiously, the original Nusheen product is no longer inside the box and was, at one point, replaced by another bottle of L’Oreal Imedia dye. The illustration on the outside of the Nusheen box reflects the beauty standards of the time: thin brows, heavily rouged cheeks, and hair cut into a bob.

Learn more about the origins of L’Oréal

Imedia was one of the first revolutionary hair-care lines created by the just-blossoming L’Oréal company in the 1930s, born in response to a world where women were now clamoring into salons to get the latest fashions in vogue. L’Oreal’s founder, chemist Eugène Schueller, created his first product, a safe synthetic hair dye, in 1909 and named it ‘L’Auréale’, potentially inspired by the popular Auréole hairstyle, which involved wearing the hair like a “halo” around the head. The company only later officially became L’Oreal.

Set of Imedia developer and dye bottles (contained in each of the Imedia boxes), c.1930s

The Bob

was the in vogue hairstyle of the 1920s and 30s. For centuries, Western women had worn their hair long. The bob, which first appeared in the 1910s, began as a rebellious statement of anti-traditionalism and individuality. The hairstyle came to be associated with flapper girls who turned traditional femininity on its head and famously disregarded the social norm. This meant, of course, that many people initially opposed the bob and its connotations of rebellion. However, the popularization of the hairstyle by celebrities such as Louise Brooks, Josephine Baker (who was known for wearing one of the most daring bob styles, the Eton bob), and Clara Bow meant that women were flocking to salons for the cut by the 1920s. The bob had entered the mainstream. To explore some of the many bob styles popular in the 1920s and 30s, click here.

Publicity photo of Josephine Baker sporting the Eton Bob, 1930s

The illustrated woman on the Nusheen box looks like she is sporting either the Charleston Cut or the Shingle version of the bob, and has styled it in Marcel or finger waves. Marcel waves were created using a Marcel curling iron, a handheld metal curling device originally heated over a fire and then clamped around the hair to create long-lasting waves. Finger waves were created by pinching and combing hair into an S-shape flat along the head, then setting them with a styling lotion.

To many women in the 1930s, and likely the past owner of the five hair product boxes in our collection, this illustrated woman would have been the pinnacle of current fashions. While women were striving to achieve this fashionable look, it was also heavily criticized by some. These competing sentiments created a tension for women, who were both encouraged by beauty corporations to subscribe to the new beauty standards of the rapidly changing 1930s and also told to resist them by others.

The three images below, from the Wee Museum of Memory’s own collection of photographs, show real women in the 1920s sporting the bob. The “unknown woman,” photographed in 1925, has styled her hair in waves and likely used a marcel iron or the finger waves technique.

Janet (Nettie) Burgess (later Park, 1924

Want to explore more photos?

We have a photo collection of over 5,000 images online and open to the public! Click below if you’d like to take a look at the rest of the collection.

Click here!

At the same time that women were cutting their hair up to their ears, hair dye became increasingly more popular. Just like the bob, flapper girls were some of the first to dye their hair in noticeable ways. However, many women were partaking in private to cover up greys or subtly change their colour, even though it was often seen as a hallmark of a promiscuous girl. Although the stigma had relaxed significantly by the 1930s and many women were openly dyeing their hair, many still wanted to hide it. Brands recognized this and often chose to advertise their dyes as tints to entice women who were scared of “dyes.”

You can see this sales technique in the five hair products in our collection. The Nusheen product specifically mentions it is “not a dye” and claims to wash out with shampoo, while the L’Oreal boxes are advertised as tints, not dyes. Perhaps the real woman who owned these hair products in the 1930s felt the tension of wanting to change the colour of her hair, but not wanting to reveal or admit that she was using dyes.

Top of the Nusheen box reads “Not A Dye”

Bottom of the Imedia box reads “Hair Tint”

The most mysterious aspect of these specific boxes is the fact that they were discovered under the floorboards of a bungalow in the Granton area of Edinburgh during a renovation. Their discovery, almost like little boxes of buried treasure dug up from the floorboards, immediately makes you question who hid them and why. What kind of pressures led them to be hidden? Was their owner embarrassed? Were they secretly dyeing their hair?

Perhaps a young girl desperately wanted to dye her hair like the fashionable older girls at her school or the movie stars she saw in cinemas and advertisements. Maybe her parents forbade her from dyeing her hair because they considered it too mature for a girl her age. Maybe she wanted the in-vogue look so badly that she scrounged together various bottles from her mother’s bathroom cupboards or enlisted her friends at school to pinch some from their own mothers. Maybe this young girl never worked up the courage to oppose her parents’ no-dye policy, and so the stolen dyes were forgotten beneath the floor.

Or maybe a woman entering her later years felt the ever-growing pressures to maintain her youth through modern artificial means, and so purchased the dye to hide the grey hairs peeking out along her hairline. Maybe she didn’t want to admit that she was going grey. Or maybe she didn’t want to admit that she was subscribing to the new world of artificial beauty, and so hid the evidence under the floor.

Could it have been that someone disliked the fact that their wife or daughter was dyeing their hair and so hid them away? Or maybe someone was jealous of her sister’s coloured hair and so stashed them away and forgot about them.

While we can’t say for sure who hid them or the reason why, these five small boxes of hair product have connected them to us decades later. Someone decades ago was likely facing the same pressures and embarrassment that many of us face today in a world where the beauty standard continues to climb to unachievable heights.

By looking at objects like these, we can relate to those who lived in the past. Their worries and joys are often not so different to out own. Its this connection between the past and the present that can make the exploration of these everyday objects so interesting.

If you want to hear more about some of the other intriguing objects in our collection and stay up to date with our cataloguing journey, stay tuned for our next blog post!

by Matilda Whitelock

Matilda

Interactive displays…fun for all ages!

It’s been a while since our last update but we have been very busy at the Wee Museum. Organising displays and storage, continuing the multiple forms and documentation for our application for Museum Status, working with new groups, setting up new procedures, as well as welcoming sometimes well over 100 visitors per day. The weeks and months have flown by too quickly.

With our bigger space at the old Superdry unit we have managed to showcase a larger selection of our collections – and also accept and display a some larger donations, some of which are robust enough for visitors of any age and background, to try out and have a bit of fun.

Our grand and upright pianos attract a lot of use: lots of visitors seem to be able to play Fur Elise, but others prefer more improvised melodies. However recently we got a donation of a Pianola. Steck Pianola Pianos were made in Gotha, Germany, from the early 20th century. They continued to be manufactured throughout the 1920s, and were very popular in Europe. Production declined, however, and stopped by the early 1930s. The one we have is in great working order and came with several large boxes of paper rolls – classical pieces, operas and operettas, ragtime, dixy and Christmas music. It’s easy to use, makes you feel and sound like a virtuoso, and is very good for exercising the legs. Come in a give it a go…

Another new musical donation is our NSM City jukebox. German manufacturer NSM started producing jukeboxes in 1952. Over the years, the company has produced a wide variety of models with varying features and this is one from the 1980s. It took 20p and 50p coins and is a cumbersome beast. It lights up but unfortunately the mechanism for selecting the 45s and playing them does not work. We have had a couple of attempts to sort the problem but without success. Despite not fully functioning, we incorporated the machine into one of the Thursday morning activity and reminiscence sessions. The single collection that came with the donation is quite eclectic. So recreating a popular TV show the ‘Juke Box Jury’ selected a random number and the record was then played on a conventional record deck. The group then voted: hit or miss. Visitors can’t try out the jukebox but it does stimulate memories.

Car racing and football games are also popular. Peter Adolph developed Subbuteo, known as Assembly Outfits, which was first available in 1947. The ‘players’ were made from cardboard, the more familiar moulded figures being introduced in the 1960s. The game proved a winning concept and is still produced by Hasbro. The version which has been donated is probably from the 1980s and has the standard blue and red teams. Visitors of all ages (including quite a few of the contractors involved in the refit of OT) find themselves drawn to having a go – seeing if they can are still able to flick the figures and get the winning goal! The result? A lot of broken players and lost balls.

Scalextric is British brand of car racing set, which was developed by engineer B. Fred Francis and introduced in 1956. It was acquired by Hornby Hobbies in 1968, who continue to produce it. The design of the cars, track and hand-controls have undergone a lot of modification over the decades but our c. 1970s iteration still attracts a lot of attention and reminiscing. This also means we see a fair number of major crashes through the barriers and a lot of repair work on the pick up brushes by our resident mechanic Barry.

Come in and try out some of our interactive displays and donations…whatever your age.

The Wee Museum – bigger and bolder!

After 6 months sharing a unit with The Wee Play Hub we have moved again. As ever, this location may only be temporary, but we are deighted that we are now in what was previously the Superdry shop on the first floor. This unit was not meant to be for the museum but we managed to persuade OT management that it would work perfectly for us…and we’re delighted!

It’s always hard work moving out and moving in, but we had a brilliant team of staff and other volunteers who came along to carry boxes and furniture from the various ‘storage’ spaces that we had filled, way back in April. A huge thank you to them all – we wouldn’t have managed without you.

Superdry Steam Punk to Weird and Wonderful Wee Museum

The Superdry shop space, layout, design and fittings are quite quirky: a bit steam punky. However, this has provided us with a really exciting space to expand and develop into a new bigger, and bolder, Wee Museum of Memory.

Dark wood walls, the exposed metal heating and air conditioning pipes, the spotlights, and large window areas all mean that we are able to have much more of our collections on display. Over the years our donations have expanded and increased (we have had to turn down offers of many objects – particularly sewing machines, scrubbing boards, shoe lasts, stoneware hot water bottles, radios, cameras, irons, and hairdryers…sorry to everyone who has offered donations) that we were not able to put out on display for the public. With the increased space and distinct, almost separate, sections, we have been able to create themed areas: music, library, home and kitchen, fashion, travel, electronics and radios, children…We’ve allowed our imagination to run wild and used the opportunity to put out some of our personal favourites.

So much to see…

We’ve still got a friendly seating area which provides a lovely space to run our activity and reminscence sessions. The black display panel makes a surprisingly effective screen for the slide shows, film clips or singing videos that we use. Barry has also set up a continual projection of the photo archive or films such as ‘The Singing Street’ or other archive moving films on another of the black panels.

The kitchen and home area – with a cunningly displayed scubbing board alcove – prompts a lot of discussion and memories from visitors, particularly the Carbolic soap and Cremola Foam.

Barry’s vision of a ‘pick up a book and have a seat’ area for our books is proving popular. As is the the music area, with records to put on for a spin. The guitars are there for folk to try, as is the piano. We’ve also been able to put more of our clothes out. These are mostly ladies items – and you may have some ideas why this is the case? Did women hold onto their favourite clothes for longer, hoping that they might come back into fashion? The little red dress, the sparkly mini, the PVC raincoat, the black stilletoes, the yellow summer shoes…

The typewriters, telephones, late 20th century computers, cameras and radios continue to get a lot of attention and interest. It is interesting to notice who engages more with the different displays. Grandfathers, fathers and sons spend quite a bit of time examining the various cameras and phones – by picking them up or demonstrating how they were used.

Star attraction…

The current star donation, in pride of place at the front, is the Subbuteo game. The version we have now, with perimeter fencing, TV cameras, and score board, has come from our very own archivist, David. This brings in men of a certain age, including quite a few of the construction workers who are currently demolishing the Debenhams end of OT, who like to have a go reliving their youth, recreating a memorable World Cup match between Scotland and Spain. Viva Espania …Scotland the Brave! In some folks dreams Scotland will win the Jules Rimet trophy.

Come in and see…

Our Wee Museum of Memory is bigger and bolder, perhaps not brighter (due to the lighting that Superdry had) but it is atmospheric, welcoming, interesting, quirky, interactive, and fun. We offer something for visitors of all ages and backgrounds. If you haven’t been before, then come in and see…it’s free!

There’s always something happening…

The LMA/Wee Museum of Memory is an eclectic organisation. We function as a wee museum developing our collections and policies in order to achieve museum accreditation status. But that is only a small part of our work and outreach.

Our team organise the ‘Wee Hubs’: the Wee Play Hub is located in the other half of the Wee Museum of Memory and the Wee Hub 2 is upstairs, on the second floor of OT. These spaces are used by us, and by a variety of other community groups, offering a diverse range of activities and workshops. From upcycling furniture by Bethany Christian Trust, Latin Dance classes by LACAE, to Inspiring Leith running English conversation classes and messy play/art/craft sessions in the Wee Play Hub. There is always something happening for children and adults.

These sessions would not run without the commitment and energy of the organisers of the activities. Raksha, Ibra and Alan are full of ideas to engage young children, and their adult companions, in art and craft. Painting, sticking, collages, printing…lots to try. These run on Wednesday morning and afternoon, Thursday, Friday and Saturday mornings. They are free to attend and no need to book.

On Friday afternoons, Jacquy has a story telling session, from 2.00 to 2.30 pm. A time for a quieter activity, the children sit on the floor when she rings her bell and listen to her lovely gentle stories.

Kenneth runs a Lego club in the Wee Play hub. Behind the scenes all the bits and pieces of Lego are stored away, but come Saturday afternoon they all come out. Like all the activites, it is free to drop in. Come along and join in the model making.

Up in the Wee Hub 2, Bethany Christian Trust run drop-in upcycling furniture, From 1-2.30 on Tuesday afternoon they take unloved and discarded furniture to clean, repair and redesign into usable and functional furnishings. The Latin Dance run by LACAE on Thursdays, has a teens session from 6.00-7.00 pm and a Salsa fundamentals session from 7.00-8.00pm. Again these are free and no need to book.

We are grateful to all those organisations and volunteers who run the sessions, and to our team of Delphine, Caroline, Heather and Barry who organise the weekly calendar.

We’ve moved… temporarily

Due to the exciting developments at Ocean Terminal The Wee, Museum of Memory has had to leave the old unit on the second floor to a new – temporary – space on the first floor. We moved into an empty restaurant at the end of 2019 and quickly adapted to the space. We had a window looking out onto Britannia, space for an office, a sound proofed studio, and an L-shaped area for display and public access.

Of course within a few months the country, had gone into Lockdown as Covid 19 spread. Many of us worked from home, or were on furlough. Once we reopened, we continued to expand our collections with many interesting donations of objects and memories. Our children’s area developed into a well used play area. The sofas and chairs beside the window were great for our regular reminiscence and activity groups. Our visitor numbers often exceeded 100 per day…

But things change, and after much planning OT embarked on their ambitious redevelopment in November 2023. The Wee Hub moved into the empty French Connection unit on the first floor (as well as using the Wagamama space) at the end of last year. However the Wee Museum’s new home needs some TLC and repair work before we can use it, so we in the meantime we have taken over half of the Wee Hub. On 29th March we closed the Wee Museum on the second floor, packed up and moved downstairs. With the help of a team of staff and volunteers (thank you to our team of young lads: Darren, Kris and Stefan – who helped us move the last time) over two weeks we packed, transported, carried boxes, furniture, equipment, pictures, mannequins, cases, bits and bobs with no major disasters or breakages!

Although we no longer have a window, we organised a comfy seating area for our groups, which have restarted with John’s Tuesday afternoon group and Joyce’s Thursday morning group.

With limited space we have also had to reorganise and reduce the amount of material that is on display. What is visible is only a selection of what we have in the collection, most of which is now stored at the back of the unit or in OT’s storage space. Naomi has carefully chosen objects to reflect the kind of material that has been donated to us, both typical and unique, so that visitors are still able to engage with, pick up and reminiscence about their childhood, home life, work, travel, hobbies… The displays are themed: sport and leisure, travel and transport, medicines and savings, food storage, drinks, household and cooking, technology, hair and beauty and sewing. The space is accessible for those using mobility aids, and the objects can still be picked up and examined. Our children’s play area has had to be stored but we do share a space with the Wee Play Hub so are not excluding younger visitors.

Although it is likely that we will be moving again later in the year, at the moment we are again open seven days a week: 10.30 to 4.00 Monday to Friday and 11.00-4.00 at weekends. Our Memory Boxes can still be borrowed (for a small donation). Visitors are welcome to join our groups on Tuesday and Thursday and we can book other groups for planned reminiscence sessions – a donation towards tea and coffee is welcome. If you want to pop in and have a wander round and reminisce with one of us, or have any questions drop us an email: comhist@googlemail.com. Follow us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/TheWeeMuseumOfMemory

or TikTokhttps://www.tiktok.com/@livingmemoryassociation

Seeking the Highland Cow

By Vivienne Corgoova

The year was 1958 when Addie Donaldson went on a cycling holiday with his wife Barbara to explore the Highlands. While cycling, they simply had to capture the approaching automobile in a photograph as they happened to be fellow tourists captivated by the mysterious atmosphere of the Highlands. The romantic promotion of the Scottish Highlands saw its peak after the publication of Sir Walter Scott´s historical novels in the early 19^th century. “My heart’s in the Highlands a-chasing the deer,” (Scott, line 2) is one of his profound quotes which summarizes the importance the Scottish nature resembled to the author himself. Scott´s depictions of the Scottish Highlands as a mythical, melancholic, and yet bewitching and beautiful place inspired tourists and families across Britain to use the Highlands as their weekend getaway. The illustrations in Scott´s novels by a history painter, William Allan, complimented his literary depiction of Scottish heritage and enhanced the reader´s desire to visit the landscape. The mid-19th century therefore marked the emergence of literary tourism in Scotland.

In addition to the literary works of Scottish authors, the British royal family also contributed to the popularization of touring Scottish nature mainly thanks to Queen Victoria´s numerous visits to the Balmoral Castle. Many English people wanted to follow her travels and participate in the new “touring Scotland trend.” This can raise several questions concerning Scottish uniqueness. What makes Scotland different? How is Scottish identity defined and why is it so attractive to tourists? The iconography in a typical Scottish souvenir shop would be filled with images of tartans, bagpipes, whiskey, and predominantly magical Scottish nature with the cutest Highland cows and vibrant blue skies without any sign of rain. While these images are usually used to lure tourists into the country, they are also associated with Scottish nationhood. The way most nations started to form is by declaring what they are not like rather than emphasizing their most prominent features. Scotland sought to distinguish itself from the English identity by stating that it was different from England building the evidence from stereotypical images such as men in kilts, bagpipers in the Highlands and magnificent nature. This distinction was the point that made the English public interested in the country and it forced them to explore the country to witness those mythical characteristics.

John Howden with his family in the Highlands, 1960

As the railway system across Britain evolved and improved throughout the 20^th century, tickets soon became more accessible to the working classes who could travel to different parts of the country for leisure. In 1983, ScotRail was first introduced to public transport making the travel from southern parts of the UK to the north even easier. The accessibility of the transport system was strongly interlinked with tourism as the decision to go on a holiday to the other side of the country often depended on the convenience of railways, roads, and buses. In very recent history, we can see how imperative transportation is for touring companies as hundreds of Edinburgh Tour Buses pass us every day. These buses can easily go from the Royal Mile to Royal Yacht Britannia in Leith just in a few minutes while providing the guides with the possibility to cover a wider area of Edinburgh´s history all while looking out the window and seeing the mentioned places. The popularity of such buses shows the importance of the tourism sector in Scottish history which also provides 13% of Scotland´s total employment (Bhandari, 21). Even though the stereotypical images on postcards and guide tour leaflets barely represent the complexity of Scottish identity, they are a profound part of a visitor´s idea of Scotland which can only encourage them to visit the place and experience the full extent of Scottish heritage.

“Trasport and Tourism” display in The Wee Museum

Don´t forget to visit us in The Wee Museum of Living Memory to see our “Transport and Tourism” monthly table!

Sources:

Scott, Walter. “My heart’s in the Highlands”

Bhandari, Kalyan. Tourism and National Identity: Heritage and Nationhood in Scotland. Bristol, UK: Channel View Publications, 2014.

Glendening, John. The High Road: Romantic Tourism, Scotland, and Literature, 1720-1820, Macmillan, 1997.

Wee Hubs – 2024 news

We closed the Wee Hub in the former Debenhams at the end of 2023 as OT have started their long-awaited rebuilding programme. However, this did not mean that the idea of having community spaces being used by different ages and groups stopped, so LMA are delighted that they will be managing two units in OT for public use.

They are The Wee Play Hub and The Wee Hub Lounge. The units are undoubtedly smaller than Debenhams, one is on the first floor, and the other on the second floor but they are up and running already.

The units have been cleaned, tidied and organised by the usual enthusiastic team of: Heather, Caroline, and one of our volunteers, David C. Delphine, David D, and Barry have also been involved shifting furniture, co-ordinating bookings, and setting up the play stations etc.

Wee Play Hub art and guitars and art work

French Connection to The Wee Play Hub…

The former French Connection, now The Wee Play Hub, is open 11.00 – 3.00 pm Wednesday to Sunday and anyone can pop in and play with the toys, read books, play the piano or one of our guitars, or try out video games. You can also sit down and have a rest, eat your lunch, have a chat…The walls provide space for displaying art work by some of those who used the old Wee Hub for studio space; there is aready a display up. Alan will be running workshops for his abstract art, the Conversation Club meet weekly and LACAE hold children’s language classes. Think Circus are also going to be doing circus jam sessions at weekends.

It’s certainly not as big a space as the children’s play area in the old Debenhams was but The Wee Play Hub once again provides a safe area for parents and toddlers. We only opened a few days before Christmas but it is already proving very popular. There is no official co-ordinated programme as yet but Caroline is on the case and the first ‘event’ is a Bairns Burns Party on 25 January at 1.30 pm. There will be music and dance and poems so get out your kilt and tam o’shanters and come along!

Wagamama to Wee Hub Lounge.

As this was previously a restaurant it was more of a challenge decidint how to best use the space, given that the counters for preparing and serving food are fixed and cannot be moved. Debenhams Wee Hub had proved very popular for dance groups or individuals – either as rehearsal space or for free classes – and it was decided that the area would work best as a dance practice area. Since the space is limited, and access complicated, most of the sessions are not open for drop-in by members of the public but a number of our previous groups have restarted their sessions. These include: Ukrainian, Bulgarian dance classes, as well as and LACAE and Onisis. The Wee Hub Lounge is also being used for upcycling furniture and for a martial arts fitness class.

Whenever we have moved into a new unit there has always been the opportunity to recycle and repurpose the fittings and furniture that has been left behind. There wasn’t a lot in Wagamama but the floor to ceiling mirrors along one wall all came from changing rooms in Debenhams – a shining example of recyling – and is proving popular with dancers!

The Wee Hub Lounge – now used for dance practices

Pop in to The Wee Play Hub for a visit and check it out.

Wee Scottish Indulgence

By Vivienne Corgoova

‘The Last Word’ – a model pub from the Wee Museum’s Collection, made and donated by a volunteer.

They are seen on every street and every corner, a prerequisite of even the smallest Scottish village and an integral part of all Scottish tourist guides. Their popularity persevered even in the modern era connecting modern society with communities in the past. Bars, pubs, inns, ale houses, and taverns. They were all used as the main sites for socialising for centuries and continue to be regarded as places of social connections even today. Scottish pubs have been an intrinsic part of Scottish history since the 1700s. After the Union of Scotland and England in 1707, major political and social changes took place forcing the general Scottish public to engage in political discussions and form protesting groups. Pubs and ale houses at the time were considered public spaces where labourers, merchants, craftsmen, and others could meet and discuss their discontent with the current politics without being noticed by the authorities. No wonder that even Robert Burns, a prominent Scottish poet during the Jacobite Uprisings, wittily refers to such meetings in his poem “The Author’s Earnest Cry and Prayer”: “Freedom and whisky gang thegither” (Burns, stanza 32). Since then, it was often the Presbyterian ministers and clergy criticizing the Scottish public for their drunkenness and rising level of crime. This notion together with constant rioting was one of the reasons why the Scots were regarded as “the swine and rabble of England and Scotland” (Husks for Swine, 1974).

A wee bit of a Gin Craze

Anyone who enjoys a good pub crawl would soon notice the extensive selection of gins in every good bar or pub ranging from London and its notorious London Dry Gin to Scottish numerous craft gins. This notion can be once again traced all the way back to the 18^th century´s “Gin Craze” when the consumption of gin skyrocketed among the British public. Gin was particularly popular in working-class environments as it was seen as the cheaper alternative to French brandy. First crates of gin were being imported from the Netherlands meaning that the Port of Leith played a crucial part in distributing gin among Edinburgh citizens. Soon enough, the market opened up to gin distillation after Queen Anne herself approved of the botanical drink which led her to reduce taxes for the distilleries and even allow them to run the business without any license needed. However, the heavenly indulgence did not last for long and in the mid-18^th century, the authorities realized that crime had significantly increased after the introduction of gin to the market. By 1743, England was known for drinking almost 10 litres of gin per person per year. Naturally, the taxation on gin was increased in the Gin Act of 1751 as a response to that. Despite the decrease in consumption after the Act was issued, gin remained a popular drink and the established distilleries were getting more recognition.

Bottles, beer mats, souvenir booklets and more make up the Wee Museum’s collection of alcohol-related objects

Gordon’s London Dry Gin was introduced to the market in 1769 by Alexander Gordon who was of Scottish descent. The Wee Museum’s collection holds a miniature book ‘Gordon´s Recipes for Cocktails and Other Mixed Drinks’ which on the very first page highlights that “the name Gordon guarantees purity and quality.” The book contains recipes for the old gin classics. Negronis, dry Martinis or Clover Club. The cocktail more unknown to modern bar-goers would be “Gin Daisy”, which can be made as follows:

Half fill tumbler with chipped ice and add

1 glass Gordon´s Dry Gin

6 dashes of Grenadine

Juice of ½ a Lemon

½ Tablespoonful of Powdered Sugar

Stir well until the glass is frosted, fill with Soda Water adding 2 or 3 sprigs of Mint, and decorate with slices of fruit in season.

All of our alcohol-related objects are handled frequently, but of course the bottles are empty!

Make a wee space for women

Moralising over the consumption of alcohol naturally could not go without a dash of double standards that would demonize women who participated in the “pub culture”. During the First World War, female pub-going significantly increased as a result of growing anxieties surrounding the war continuing in the interwar period too. The public treated female drunkenness as a failure of morality and a total end of femininity and proper womanhood. The reason was simple, the demon drink could only lead to sexual immorality or to the abandonment of maternal responsibilities. The stigma over women in drinking spaces changed after the Second World War when women were widely employed in hospitality, service-based industries, and warehouses. By the mid-1990s in Scotland, there would even be a higher percentage of women in such workplaces than men. A picture from our photo archive depicting the bottling line at Invergordon Whisky Bond in 1990 shows that women made up the majority of such workplaces relating to alcohol.

A photograph from our archive, showing women working at Invergordon Whisky Bond in 1990.

Sources

Burns, Robert. “The Author’s Earnest Cry and Prayer.” 1786

Husks for Swine. Dedicated to the Swine of England, the Rabble of Scotland, and the Wretches of Ireland. 1794. Edinburgh: Edinburgh.

Yeomans, Henry. Alcohol and Moral Regulation: Public Attitudes, Spirited Measures and Victorian Hangovers. Bristol ; Policy Press, 2014.

Cooke, Anthony. A History of Drinking: The Scottish Pub since 1700. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2022.

The History of Gin in Edinburgh: From Old Town to New, 2023 https://secretgardendistillery.co.uk/blogs/secret-garden-blog/the-history-of-gin-in-edinburgh-from-old-town-to-new

Another busy year has passed…

Another busy year has gone by so quickly at the Wee Museum of Memory/The Living Memory Association. Although the Wee Hub (Debenhams version) has closed, we will be managing some smaller units in the centre to provide hubs and space for artists, dancers, and children. These units need to be cleaned and prepared and made safe for users and public so they are not quite ready yet – but please do watch this space or contact us for further information. Caroline has again taken point with organising the new area and, although we have all had a wee turn at cleaning, our volunteer David merits a special thanks for all his hard work.

The Wee Museum remains in situ on the second floor beside Britannia but will move to another unit at some point in 2024 – we do not know where or when as yet. Packing up, moving and then unpacking and setting out in a new space will be interesting and challenging but the move should give us the opportunity to review the layout, as well as selecting what objects and materials will be included in the displays. Naomi will keep us organised with how we approach this slightly daunting task. We obviously aim to maintain a welcoming venue that visitors will continue to find interesting and engaging, as well as memory provoking, wherever we are located.

Wee Museum of Memory – still next to Britannia.

Throughout this year we have had a very varied diet of events and projects. John and Joyce have held regular drop-in sessions. John held reminiscence sessions on Tuesday afternoons, and Joyce’s Thursday morning activity group combined reminiscence with crafts, art, exercises, singing, slide shows, music, circus skills, and customs and traditions. They both also took sessions for visiting groups from a variety of organisatiobusy ns including: Wardie Gentle Walking group, Pilmeny Older People’s group, Healthy Together, Rotary Club Dalkeith, Beacon Club, Pilmeny Development Group, Portobello Older People’s Project, St Anne’s Care Home, International Women’s Group, and Friendship Group.

The extended and improved memory boxes have proved popular and are being borrowed on a regular basis. The School Bag remains the most popular, and has been used in some schools as well as other community groups. The bags and boxes have been used by different groups including: Celtic FC Foundation, Heart of Newhaven, and Pilmeny Ladies Club.

The studio has been well used by Barry and Russell recording and editing podcasts. Conor, our musician summer intern, also re-edited some earlier podcasts, demonstrating great technical, as well as composing, skills. Raj has been in recording and editing Sikh Stories, and Barry has mentored and trained the Nkula Health project to record and edit their reminiscences. He has also spearheaded our increased social media presence with Facebook posts and short Tiktok videos featuring some staff and a few of our regular volunteers: there has been some friendly rivalry over the numbers of viewers each video gets but there is no doubt Sofia and Stuart are top of the league.

Russell has been busy interviewing and recording, doing outreach talks and creating an engaging display in the ‘Away for the Messages’ unit. There are plans afoot to do more work on the inside area and recreate a ‘shop-like’ environment, so there will be plenty to see on the ground floor.

We are grateful to have had regular help from a range of volunteers over the year, with a few being mentored by Naomi and Russell to help with collection management or displays. Although some have finished their time with us and returned to university, we hope that more recent volunteers continue to show interest in helping at LMA/Wee Museum of Memory and our projects.

David has maintained the photo archive, updating information on existing images and entering new donations. He’s also extremely handy at moving shelving units and other bits of furniture. The Wee Hub booking calendar and weekly What’s On programme was co-ordinated and produced by Delphine.This was quite a feat of timetabling and patience, so a massive thank you to her and hope she enjoys a well-deserved quietish month or two.

Beside us all is, of course, Heather who was also very involved with overseeing the events and programme at the Wee Hub. With Caroline, she is currently negotiating access to, and use of, the new wee Wee Hub at Wagamama as well as the the Wee Play Hub in what was French Connection, so no rest there yet. And of course, throughout the year Heather and other staff have been completing many, many grant applications in order to fund our various projects so that the Living Memory Association can continue reminiscing with visitors. It’s been a busy year right enough.

Here’s to more in 2024!