I was wearing my light weight raincoat..... I was neat, clean, had my note pad and two pens and I looked the part. I was what I should be a dedicated researcher and proud of it. I was calling on Ron in Central Ref with the promise of some priceless history.
Well as an introduction to a story I think Raymond Chandler did it better in 1939, but then I wasn’t about to unravel some rather unpleasant crimes and equally unsavoury characters.*
Instead I was on a mission to collect some picture postcards from Ron who wanted them to go to a new home.
Now in Raymond Chandler’s novel the prize was four million dollars but I rather think Ron’s picture postcards will do for me.
They are after all a double prize for any historian, offering a picture of a place at some moment in time long before now, and because more often than not there is a fascinating message on the back they offer up names, addresses and events.
All of which can be followed up.
So on an unremarkable postcard of Wilmslow Road, young Bertha Geary had written to her friend “we heard the flying man,” who turned out to be a French pilot taking part in the 1911 Daily Mail All Round Britain Air Race” and because she included her own address I found her.
She had been living on School Lane, was just 13 and that day had set off with her parents for a walk.
But for most of us it will be the picture on the front and for me it doesn’t have to be an image from a century ago.
This one of Piccadilly Gardens from 1970 is as intriguing as any from the more distant past and reminds me of that other much favoured quote “the past is a foreign country they do things differently there.”**
And for many this will be a scene which is so unfamiliar as to be a foreign place, and yet the photograph was taken in 1970 and the gardens only got their makeover very recently.
It is a treasure of an image and makes me wonder what Ron has for me.
Location, Manchester
Picture; Piccadilly circa 1970 from the collection of Sally Dervan
*”I was wearing my powder-blue suit... I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn't care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars.” The Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler, 1939
**“The past is a foreign country they do things differently there." The Go-Between, L.P. Hartley, 1953
Instead I was on a mission to collect some picture postcards from Ron who wanted them to go to a new home.
Now in Raymond Chandler’s novel the prize was four million dollars but I rather think Ron’s picture postcards will do for me.
They are after all a double prize for any historian, offering a picture of a place at some moment in time long before now, and because more often than not there is a fascinating message on the back they offer up names, addresses and events.
All of which can be followed up.
So on an unremarkable postcard of Wilmslow Road, young Bertha Geary had written to her friend “we heard the flying man,” who turned out to be a French pilot taking part in the 1911 Daily Mail All Round Britain Air Race” and because she included her own address I found her.
But for most of us it will be the picture on the front and for me it doesn’t have to be an image from a century ago.
This one of Piccadilly Gardens from 1970 is as intriguing as any from the more distant past and reminds me of that other much favoured quote “the past is a foreign country they do things differently there.”**
And for many this will be a scene which is so unfamiliar as to be a foreign place, and yet the photograph was taken in 1970 and the gardens only got their makeover very recently.
It is a treasure of an image and makes me wonder what Ron has for me.
Location, Manchester
Picture; Piccadilly circa 1970 from the collection of Sally Dervan
*”I was wearing my powder-blue suit... I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn't care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars.” The Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler, 1939
**“The past is a foreign country they do things differently there." The Go-Between, L.P. Hartley, 1953
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