Letters in Lockdown – a series of bulletins written during the 2020 Covid-19
pandemic by Museums Officers Joanne Turner and Lydia Costello for our
dispersed museum volunteers and seasonal staff.
Part 7: 2 December – 30 December 2020
2 December
Well, when I was writing to you last week, we were dealing with a bit of a worrying situation at the Robert Burns Centre. The uppermost stone on the crow-stepped gable was spotted sitting at a peculiar angle directly above the front door – see Lydia’s photographs:
Jan and Paul took immediate action - reporting it and redirecting visitors to the other exit, and we got the clerk of works around to take a look. Thankfully, the weather was calm and there was no immediate danger, so the scaffolding went up the next day and the stone was soon fixed back in place. The culprit may well have been the trees, so they were given a prune while the scaffolding was in place. Our museum attendants are always checking for such things, but this was a (thankfully) rare one.
No sooner is St Andrew’s Day passed than planning turns towards Christmas. Ruth put the Christmas tree up in the Main Hall at Dumfries Museum on Saturday and she has made a lovely job of it. It is a pity we cannot meet up
and have our annual
If you have been out and about, you will have seen that a lot of people have put up their Christmas decorations already. And some have gone the extra mile with the fairy lights! There’s one house in particular on Rotchell Road which is very colourful and cheery. I haven’t got a photo of it – but I did get a picture of the full moon on Monday when I left work.
The camera doesn’t do it justice (it looked huge), but I put it on my own Facebook page and one of my brothers in law commented that the museum looks like a giant chess piece!
Vivienne took a trip up to Kirkconnel a few days ago to see Rab (at a distance). Not quite the retirement send-off he deserves, but the occasion has been marked with a presentation of his gifts and card by Vivienne.
Rab sent us this lovely message, I’m sure he won’t mind me sharing it with you:
Hi Friends and Colleagues, as most of you will know I officially retired on Friday 20th November 2020. I worked as a Museum Attendant at Sanquhar Tolbooth Museum for thirty years. I started on Wednesday 4th July 1990 with my first assistant Ailsa Milligan. Since then I have had eighteen other Assistants over the years, all of whom I got on well with and enjoyed their company. I would like to thank everyone who signed my much appreciated retirement card and contributed to buy me the wonderful Gift Card. I will put it to good use. My wife Linda would also like to say thanks for the lovely flowers. During my time at the Museum I met hundreds of visitors, all of whom I hope enjoyed their visit.
I also met and worked with many people in the Museum Service. I enjoyed meeting them at our infrequent get-togethers. Sincere thanks also to the management team at Dumfries Museum. Special thanks to Vivienne for her understanding and patience with me, especially over the last year with my varying health problems, and for helping me to retire in such a dignified manner.
We are relieved that we have been able to go ahead with recruitment for a new museum attendant for Sanquhar Tolbooth Museum. The advert went live yesterday with a closing date of 15 December. Siobhan will be able to help with the shortlisting, but unfortunately (for us) will have retired by the time we are undertaking the interviews in January. Meanwhile, Tom and JoAnne have a rota set up for the regular winter checks, flag flying, meter reading and clock winding duties at the Tolbooth.
The office has been very quiet a lot of the time recently, without our usual comings and goings of volunteers and researchers. I did however, have a visit from the Council Archaeologist, Andy Nicholson recently. Unusually for him, it was not our archaeology collection he was interested in seeing, but some of our geology. He wanted to examine some of our local granite specimens, comparing them with an object the recent excavations at Burnswark unearthed, to work out if it was made locally.
While he was visiting, I was able to show him a find that had been brought in by one of our local metal detectorists last month.
Doesn’t seem very exciting? It is the tip of a blade – slightly curled up. The amazing thing is that we have had the rest of the blade (unearthed in March 2010) in our collection since 2012.
It is an Early Bronze Age halberd, dating from 2500 to 1900 BC. It was the same detecting group, working in the same field near Dumfries, that discovered both sections. The finders were very keen to hear if I’d been able to make the match – I was pretty confident, and Andy was able to confirm it. This is one of those occasions where, when I make our case to Treasure Trove to have the blade tip placed in our care, I will have a very strong argument for acquiring it! As for its possible origins, analysis in 2010 revealed that the halberd was cast in an arsenical copper with a pattern of composition consistent with the copper having been imported from Ireland from the Ross Island mining area.
9 December
It’s Lydia sending you a little update this week, in Joanne’s absence.
This week our Seasonal Museum Attendant posts went live, with a closing date of Tuesday the 5th of January, a good length of time for the advert to be open. Fingers crossed staff will get to take up their posts as normal when we get to March, unlike this year!
Fiona has been preparing for our venues to participate in the
Shine Bright Scotland campaign. The idea is to light windows up with a candle, lantern or fairy lights to brighten the darker months, during a difficult time. Fiona has put LED candles in the windows of the Old Bridge House and we will soon have them in some of our other venues too, like Annan Museum and Burns House. They are on timer switches so will light up from about 4.30pm, for six hours each evening.
Many of you will remember Christine, who spent a few months on an internship placement with us in 2018. She has sent us a hello from Canada:
Hello everybody,
I’ve spent quite a bit of time hiking, and earlier this year my sister moved to a town only two hours away from me, so I’ve been spending a lot of time exploring the great outdoors with her. I also became an aunt for the first time this year. My sister-in-law, Sarah gave birth to a boy named Jack in May. I haven’t had a chance to meet him in person yet as he lives in Ontario, but I’ve been spending a lot of time on Zoom and FaceTime with him which has been lovely.
I hope everyone has a happy holiday season, and I’m looking forward to when I can head out to Scotland again and see you all in person!
Cheers, Christine
That’s it from me this week. It’s been nice to get another chance to say hello and to wish you all a very Merry Christmas, when it comes in a couple of weeks’ time. I’ll leave you with a photo of a familiar (but always lovely) view of Devorgilla Bridge and the caul, that I took when I was at the Robert Burns Centre recently.
Take care,
16 December
Hello everyone, I am losing track of where the country is at regarding Covid Protection levels. I tried to contact a colleague in East Ayrshire museum services yesterday and discovered she is back in furlough. Meanwhile, museums in some areas of England have had to close once more. The Dumfries and Galloway region was adjusted to level 1 last week – which seems to buck the overall trend at the moment - a good sign – let’s hope we can maintain it into the new year.
Thanks to Lydia for her bulletin last week – although I didn’t recognise her with her new haircut. It was a lovely surprise to get an update from Christine in Canada, too. I have had correspondence from Canada recently as well. We were sent a set of prints to be added to our Sanquhar collection, along with a set of postcards of the works.
The Sanquhar Folio is a collection of fourteen, 10" x 8" collage prints. They were made during North American based artist Ric Kasini Kadour's residency at the MERZ Gallery in Sanquhar last winter. He wrote in his residency journal, “I woke up this morning and started working on the postcard series. I am photographing buildings and sites around Sanquhar and collaging them with wallpapers. This morning I worked on one of St. Bride’s Church.” His initial set of prints was exhibited at the MERZ Gallery in January and February this year.
Lydia’s bulletin last week prompted Annan volunteer, Rene to comment:
Your mention of the dentist room in the Old Bridge House reminded me that when I was looking through the Annandale Observer for 1897 I came across the following advert:
Dentistry.
Tooth extracted 1/-. Painless with cocaine 2/-.
For servants and working class by a qualified dentist opposite the Observer office. Enough to set your teeth on edge!
My only news from Annan Museum this week is that the black plastic sheeting has been removed from the corridor entrance. Its’ replacement with boarding has much improved the look of the corridor and will now be less of a fire hazard, which is great. Unfortunately, the underlying
problems with this wall have not been resolved yet.
One of our museum supporters spotted a couple of 1950s Dumfries items on Ebay recently and was able to acquire them for our collection. Both represent long established businesses in the town, at the time. The first is this little postcard, unused, for the Dumfries Motor Company Limited:
The company was established by Crossmichael born William Irving in 1907 and has occupied several positions along English Street. Initially it had “commercial stables” as well.
Here’s what was inside.
What a colour! I remember my grandma wearing a chiffon hat like this – although hers was pale blue. Apparently, in 1938 the nylon version of chiffon (a fabric usually made from silk) was invented using synthetic fibres. In 1958 polyester chiffon was created and became very popular because of its durability and particularly low price. I’ll be interested to hear what Lydia thinks of its condition after 60 years in this box!
I’m sorry we cannot have a get together of volunteers and staff this year –
particularly as it would have been a nice send off for our retiring curator. We’ll have to invite Siobhan back next year instead - which sounds like such a strange thing to say since she has had the keys to the museum for the last 38 years!
I’ll leave you with a photo of us gathered together in December 2017.
23 December
Scotland will enter level 4 coronavirus restrictions for a three week period from Boxing Day (26 December).
Therefore, in line with these measures, our museums and galleries will close from 24 December and will remain closed until the restrictions are lifted. We look forward to welcoming you again as soon as we are able to do so.
As before, our plans have been swinging into action this week to ensure that our buildings and collections are monitored and kept safe during the closure.
Amidst all the upheaval, we are saying goodbye and thank you to Siobhan! After 38 years, her final day is next Thursday. We have been grateful that her
potential retirement has been pushed back a few times in order for her to steer us through various challenges over the last couple of years. But that is typical of Siobhan’s dedication - she has always considered the best interests of the museums service in her actions and decision making.
Siobhan is not one for the limelight, but I could not let this opportunity go without seeking out some photos to highlight some of her endeavours. This is the earliest photograph I could find – a photograph from the Standard newspaper taken in October 1983 to
promote a temporary exhibition at Dumfries Museum.
Over the years, Siobhan has featured in a few promotional photographs for the Camera Obscura. There is a colour one used for many years, but I like this one of her from 1985 – showing the old buses on the Whitesands – and one of her many splendid jumpers.
And while I was delving into the newspaper scrapbooks I found these two publicity photographs (hairdrying a
Kangaroo?) from 1987 and 1988:
Siobhan is my “go to” person for all things to do with our textile collection. This photograph was taken for the Standard newspaper to promote the exhibition “Stitches in Time” back in 1991.
Over the years, Siobhan has had to contend with all sorts of challenges – including a few snakes (actual) and dragons (mythical), as these photographs from 2008 and 2009 illustrate.
As curator, Siobhan has been asked many times to speak about our museums and their collections. Here she is filming with Neil Oliver in 2009 for one of his history programs. The other photograph shows her being interviewed about Astronaut Neil Armstrong - by BBC Scotland’s Willie Johnston in Langholm in 2013.
Lastly, if you have read Siobhan’s interview in the Council’s Communities Staff newsletter this month, you will know that she mentioned the discovery of the Galloway Hoard in 2014 as one of her highlights. Here she is with one of the items from the hoard, just as it was being photographed, wrapped, and labelled for safekeeping - snapped in our workroom the morning after the hoard was unearthed. We were concerned (for its conservation) and excited (at its obvious significance) all at the same time.
It was a privilege to be here on that day, and it has been a privilege to work alongside Siobhan and share our love of museums and their collections for many years. We will miss her enormously.
30 December
Just a quick bulletin today as I am on leave this week. In this peculiar time between Christmas and New Year when one day merges into the next, at least you know it is Wednesday if you have heard from me!
I was emailed a poem last week which talks about these “Daft Days” - apparently defined as running from Christmas to the first Monday after New Year. The poem was written by Robert Fergusson (1750 – 1774), the
Edinburgh-born poet much admired by Robert Burns. ‘The Daft-Days’ was written in Scots and printed in Ruddiman’s Weekly Magazine on 2 January 1772. It is a vibrant description of Edinburgh's New Year celebrations – sadly not happening this year, but with the announcement today that the Oxford vaccine has been approved, we can be hopeful for future celebrations.
I’ll not quote the poem here – it is rather long, but I do have another poem – a farewell sent to Siobhan by Nicky, the Council’s Digital Designer, who looks after our museum website.
Sadly, no tea and cake - and Siobhan did not get to wear her accumulation of name badges (charting promotions and restructures) as she had always said she would.
Siobhan has asked me to pass on this message to everyone who contributed to her farewell: Many thanks to you all for your messages and generous gift. I know I have been incredibly lucky
to have had a career that I have enjoyed and largely that has been down to supportive and dedicated colleagues and volunteers. I know I am going to miss the museum, but will call in with a packet of biscuits for afternoon tea when it is safe to do so! In the meantime, your gift is going to buy a couple of trees for the small orchard (just 5 or 6 trees) I plan to plant this winter and a bench for the back garden where it will catch the evening sun in the summer.
You may have spotted the temporary radiators – and us in our coats and scarves in the above photographs. Unfortunately, the heating at Dumfries Museum was off awaiting the arrival of a new control panel. Carolyn is closely monitoring the building. She has sent me this photograph of the Spring bulbs which are already poking through in the grounds.
We are ready for our “first foots” at Dumfries Museum – although we’ll have to wait a while until we are allowed to welcome our visitors in again. The dinosaur footprints are gone – you can guess what the next theme is.
Footwear leads me to Bonnie Prince Charlie – he
demanded shoes for his army when he (briefly) made Dumfries his Headquarters in 1745. Born in Rome, it will be his 300th birthday tomorrow, New Year’s Eve.
Finally today, and for 2020, here’s an appropriate postcard from our collection. Wishing you a Happy and Healthy New Year – from us all at the museums.
