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Launching Paper Trails: Second-hand book to living book (with sandwiches in between)

This story started with a second-hand book I had ordered from a bookseller in Toulouse. Exploring its uncut pages and recontextualising its material history led me to reflect on the idea of research stories and sparked creative ideas about our affective relationship with archives and collections. Later, in the classroom, the story continued as students reacted creatively to items from Special Collections, challenging my own … Continue reading Launching Paper Trails: Second-hand book to living book (with sandwiches in between)

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Paper Trails Conference, 4th July 2019, University College London

Often there is more than research inside the books we read. Bookmarks, train tickets, receipts, and menus tucked into pages offer clues about the life of the book itself. Yet the lives of our research material often go unmarked, lost between the gaps in disciplinary boundaries and narrow definitions. The biographies of books and documents can illuminate their contexts, as printed matter that is sold, … Continue reading Paper Trails Conference, 4th July 2019, University College London

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How a Ladies’ College Played a Vital Role in Operation Overlord

On 16 August 1940, the Stuka raid on Tangmere was one of the most serious yet to have struck England. This surgical strike against the station destroyed 13 aircraft and resulted in the tragic death of 10 RAF servicemen and three civilians. On top of this, almost all of the pre-war hangars, the station workshops, stores and the water pumping station were destroyed, with widespread … Continue reading How a Ladies’ College Played a Vital Role in Operation Overlord

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Life Cycles: The Ephemera of Research

Parking tickets, library cards, recipes, notes, and adverts; I love second-hand books and the stuff that you can find tucked inside them. These little things seem to make the everyday nature of their reading resonate, reminding me of the material history of the book alongside the wider history that I’m researching. Coming across someone else’s expired parking tickets (or their idle doodling) calls to mind … Continue reading Life Cycles: The Ephemera of Research

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Myths, Battle & Rail: Two Stories About Waterloo Station

UPDATE: Here’s a video of me talking to The Independent about Waterloo and its contemporary importance On the 200th anniversary of Waterloo, it makes sense to think about myths, about legends and about national identity. To be honest, you’ll struggle to avoid these things. There are 2 key myths surrounding Waterloo station that relate to the battle, both of which it seems are pretty much false. … Continue reading Myths, Battle & Rail: Two Stories About Waterloo Station

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Pseudo-Padres Hiding in the Lavatory: An RAF Escape Exercise, 1943

Continuing in the series of comical findings from the archives, I thought I’d relate details of an RAF Escape Exercise that took place on 16th December, 1943 at RAF Tangmere. It sounds like a mixture of the Great Escape and a Carry On film, and I like it for the way it shows the preparation and resourcefulness that continued to happen during the War. I’ve … Continue reading Pseudo-Padres Hiding in the Lavatory: An RAF Escape Exercise, 1943

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Spiders by Taxi

Sometimes there are things in the archives that enlighten our enquiries, underpin some new discovery or reveal an important truth. Sometimes there are things that are just silly. I recently spent time working as part of a big collaborative and interdisciplinary research project on ‘Cultural Value’ led by the Open University (outputs can be found here). As part of this, I found myself in the … Continue reading Spiders by Taxi

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