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Category Archives: Collections on Scran

On Show at the Colony of Artists

September 14, 2015 by User deactivated | 0 comments

Archive images from Scran were exhibited this weekend as part of the 10th annual Colony of Artists event at Abbeyhill in Edinburgh

Colony of Artists takes place every September when residents of Abbeyhill Colonies, a series of streets in the east of the city, open their doors to the public to show a varied collection of artworks that they have produced. More than 30 artists in 20 venues open their homes, to show painting, drawing, photography, mixed media and much more. In recent years this mix has grown to include music, storytelling, baking and street performance.

coloneyofartistsScran’s images were first used in last year’s event when Neil Gregory of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS), joined forces with Abbeyhill resident Hilary Burwell to produce a pop-up exhibition about the history of buildings in the area. This showcased some of the area’s now defunct industries, churches and former school buildings. Many of the photographs in this exhibition came from the archives of RCAHMS and were taken as part of the organisation’s remit to survey and record Scotland’s built environment, particularly sites under threat from demolition or radical alteration. Scran was able to offer a social historical perspective to the show, as Neil Gregory pointed out: ‘The images on Scran, especially pictures from the Scotsman archive, were perfect for adding social context to the pictures of local buildings that we were showing, and it triggered so many memories for residents.’

abbeyhillThis year saw Hilary scale-up the exhibition, moving venue from her own home in the Colonies to the nearby Artisan Bar. Moving images, oral histories and portraits of local residents also formed part of the show and residents were encouraged to contribute their own archive material to the event.

A favourite Scran image on show featured a lorry crashing into the Artisan pub building on London Road. ‘This really got the stories going,’ commented Neil Gregory, ‘A lot of people remembered this event from 1969 and the near catastrophe that could have happened if the driver hadn’t had his wits about him as his vehicle careered down Montrose Terrace!’

Images © N Gregory, The Scotsman Publications Ltd. Licensor www.scran.ac.uk

Armistice Memories

September 1, 2015 by User deactivated | 0 comments

‘London was fair heaving, perfectly heaving’

We’ve got a new interview from the Ian Landles Archive (© Scottish Borders Council Archive Service) uploaded and live on Scran with a full summary. And it’s an exciting one! Former railwayman, George Cairns, born in the Scottish Borders in 1899 and interviewed by Ian Landles in 1981, shares his memories of working as a porter and then a signalman on the Borders Railways. He also relates his vivid memories of the eleventh of November 1918.

soldier World War One

Before joining the railways, Mr Cairns signed up for the army. This was in the last year of the First World War and Mr Cairns was sent to train in Surrey. He never saw active service because he was struck down with ‘flu during the epidemic of 1918. As he recuperated in hospital in Lewisham in London, the Armistice was signed. To celebrate, Mr Cairns was allowed to leave hospital with his pal and travel up into London. He witnessed the crowds, got plenty of attention in his military uniform and made his way through the ‘heaving’ throng of The Strand and right up to the gates of Buckingham Palace where he read the historic proclamation declaring the Armistice which had been pinned there. He also saw King George V and Princess Mary as they paraded through the streets in their carriage.

It’s a fascinating story and well worth a listen. You can access the full interview with George Cairns here and find out more about the Ian Landles  Archive on Scran here.

And railway fans, watch out for our upcoming @scranlife Twitter campaign for The Ian Landles Archive launched to coincide with the reopening of the Borders Railway on 6th September. It’s coming soon #IanLandlesArchive #clickhear.

Image © National Library of Scotland, Cheering Soldiers, Western Front, 11 November 1918. Licensor www.scran.ac.uk

The Ian Landles Archive

August 26, 2015 by User deactivated | 1 Comment

A fascinating insight into the lives of Scottish Borders folk in the last century comes to Scran.

rcahms1a_10010720

This series of interviews and sound recordings collected by local historian, retired teacher and author, Ian Landles, between the 1960s and 2010 was originally started in order to preserve the memories of local men who had fought in World War One and is a great complement to existing material on Scran about the conflict. However, the archive also offers a rich seam of oral testimonies from local women as well as men and covers themes including the Hawick Common Riding, poetry and music, farming life and mill life and the original Border railways. Many of the interviewees speak in the local dialect of Border Scots known as ‘Teri Talk’ which gives the recordings great linguistic significance.

The collection of 150 tapes was donated to the Scottish Borders Council Archives at the Heritage Hub in Hawick by Ian Landles in 2014. Digitisation of the interviews was carried out by Tobar an Dualchais with financial support from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

The Ian Landles Collection is also being made available through Scran in the form of segmented interviews with full summaries. Some transcripts are also available. Interviewees who talk about their life in the Scottish Borders include:

There will be regular new uploads to the site from the collection so do keep your eye out. We’ll keep you posted from our end.

Image © Scottish Motor Museum Trust, Alvis 1920s. Licensor www.scran.ac.uk

Falkirk’s First World War

August 24, 2015 by User deactivated | 0 comments

World War One memories of Falkirk people now available on Scran.

tape recorder

This three-part collection from Falkirk Archives has been digitised from original cassette tape recordings compiled for Falkirk Museum’s First World War exhibition held back in 1984.

Interviewees talk about life on the Home Front in Falkirk and away on the Western Front during the conflict. Women recall their roles working in local munitions factories and the attitudes of male workers in the factories to women at this time. There are recollections of the Suffragette Movement and when women gained the vote after the war. Men recall their experiences in the trenches during the conflict and remember the impact of The Armistice on those fighting at the Front. An interview with a female munitions worker in Falkirk during World War Two offers an interesting comparison.

Each Falkirk’s First World War interview comes with a summary with timecodes and a complete transcript.

Image © H L Foster

Up Close and Personal with The Scotsman Collections

August 23, 2015 by User deactivated | 0 comments

Skills for the Future (SftF) trainees, join Scran to gain experience working with an exciting digital collection – The Scotsman collection.

Scran currently hosts over 66,000 images from The Scotsman newspaper’s extensive archive. These were digitised from glass plate negative back in 1999 in preparation for the newspaper’s move from their iconic old headquarters on North Bridge to new premises at Holyrood Road in Edinburgh. The collection is an incredibly rich social-historical resource, documenting life in Edinburgh and its environs from the 1930s to the 1980s. However, very little contextual information was recorded and stored alongside the original negatives and captions that appear on Scran have been created over time from a range of historical sources.

SftF trainees, who joined Scran this summer for a placement, were tasked with carrying out some of this vital research on themed batches of Scotsman images, enhancing and editing existing caption information and metadata in an effort to make each record more findable on the Scran website.

FullSizeRender (10)Their placement also involved a visit to see the original glass plates housed at the Scottish Life Archive at the National Museums Scotland stores in Granton. Senior Curator, Dorothy Kidd, gave a guided tour and allowed the trainees to get up close and view the Scotsman glass plates for themselves.

The SftF/Scran experience culminates in a digital exhibition, curated by the trainees, to showcase the Scotsman collections on Scran. The exhibition opens next month at the RCAHMS Search Room, Bernard Terrace, Edinburgh.

Find about more about the Skills for the Future trainees and their placement with Scran on their blog.

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