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“Voluntary Service is a coloured thread in the fabric of the Nation, and without that thread the fabric is neither as beautiful nor as strong as it should be”.
Lady Reading 1970
These
are the words of Stella Reading founder chairman of WVS which are very relevant
to the support archives are given by those who volunteer their time and skills
to help with a multitude of tasks. It’s been a while since we updated you on
what our volunteer team have been up to in the archive so here is a quick round
up of all the tasks the team have been helping us with recently.
Cataloguing photographs
After completing his work on sorting through, digitising and cataloguing 100s photographs from 1990s and 2000s Pete has started work on photographs
from 1940s, 50s, 60s and 70s. They have all been digitised and are now being
described in detail in the Archive’s catalogue; Pete is working very hard and we often find out a lot of new information through research into the subject of the photograph.
Central Registry Files
These files contain policy documents relating to various
WVS/WRVS departments including Good Companions, Hospitals, One-in-Five, Civil
Defence and Food. Each one is full of pins, staples and treasury tags which
need to be removed. Nora is very busy working through over 1000 files to make
sure they are repackaged to archival standards and preserving the history of
the charity.
Narrative Reports
Yes we’re still working on the Narrative Report collection; there are 300,000 pages you know! Although we aren’t digitising the rest of the collection volunteers are starting to work on repackaging reports written in 1980s and early 1990s. Pearl is busy working away on them and discovering new stories while removing rust staples. As she has been since 2012 as Pearl said then “an afternoon in the life of this apprentice archivist is never dull.”
Record Cards
The latest project our volunteers are working on is
repackaging a number of volunteer record cards we hold in the collection. Jean
and Alice have been busy working on a number of areas including Aberdeen,
Cardiff, Midlands and East Dunbartonshire. This isn’t simply an exercise in
putting cards in alphabetical order there is a lot to think about e.g. are the
cards split into a specific order, into centres into WVS cards and civil
defence cards. Jean and Alice certainly have their work cut out for them.
Accessions
Every year we seem to receive more and more material into
the collection, it’s always exiting to get some new treasure! Jeannie helps us
out with accessions and has been for just over ten years sorting through c240
accessions. The latest material to come in was a WRVS Long Service medal with a
clasp and MBE belonging to Molly Lace Regional Organiser for North Yorkshire.
As you can see our volunteer team are very busy and doing a marvellous
job helping us to take care of this very important collection. We are always
looking for people to join our volunteering team so if you are based in the
Devizes area and interested in history and heritage why not get in touch with
us through our online volunteering opportunities.
“Traditional” skills needed by archivists today include
arrangement, description and an understanding of the importance of original
order. Applying all three skills/theories when repackaging and cataloguing a
series can lead to issues when original order is being kept to but does not fit
with the original order of the collection (you can find out more about
collections and series and their structure here). However this can be easily
solved with some Quantum Archiving (as thought of by our Archivist). In this week’s blog we look at what Quantum
Archiving is and how this has been applied in the Royal Voluntary Service
Archive & Heritage Collection.
Quantum Archiving is similar to the second interpretation of
Quantum theory known as the many-worlds or multiverse theory; where an object
can exist in many states in a number of parallel universes. In archiving, a collection could exist in
many states: analogue; digital or a reconstructed version e.g. in a transcript
to name a few. These formats would be in different places (universes) such as a
store room, a server or a database. Over
the years we have been working on preserving and making accessible the 300,000
fragile pieces of paper which hold the hidden histories of millions of women
and men who have given their time as volunteers to WVS and WRVS between 1938
and 1996 also known as the Narrative Reports. In 2018 we started work on more
recent reports written in 1980s and 1990s however this part of the series is
very different from earlier reports.
By 1980s the geographical structure of WRVS had changed from
being organised into twelve regions following the Civil Defence Corps
organisational structure to the follow Local Authorities restructured in 1974.
This meant WRVS was split into districts rather than centres, thus fewer
reports were produced and less frequently from monthly to quarterly and finally
biannually. As well as writing monthly narrative reports areas particularly
counties wrote annual reports. These reports were usually kept separately in
the archive’s collections from the Narrative Reports however when the 1980s
annual reports for some counties and districts arrived at HQ they were stored
with the Narrative Reports for those areas.
When volunteers started working on the reports carrying out
basic preservation and giving sub series reference numbers they noticed that
sat on top were some annual reports. The team then discussed what we should do
and how they should be ordered. Should they
be classed as Narrative Reports? Should they be moved to the collection of annual
reports? It was decided that the physical order should be kept as the
original order while the catalogue record, reference and description would
reflect the order of the rest of the archive’s theoretical structure e.g.
fonds, series and files. Therefore the annual reports exist in two different states
in two different “universes”; the physical and the theoretical. To further
complicate matters the 1980s and 1990s reports are ordered differently to the
1938-1979 reports. Earlier reports are ordered by region then date then county
then centre but after 1980 they have been ordered by region then county then
centre then date. A slight difference but means that they are physically stored
in their original state but described and referenced as the rest of the series
was intended.
In conclusion arrangement and description (including
reference) do not always fall in to line in archiving. Therefore a collection
can exist in two different states in a physical and theoretical/digital world. This
example is just one of many and I’m sure we will continue receiving surprises
from the Narrative Report collection which makes us look at the different ways
it can exist.
Tomorrow is
the start of a New Year and perhaps for some the start of some New Year’s
resolutions. If one of those is researching a new project or discovering
something new we can help. In this week’s blog we provide a guide to using our
online resources to research the history of Royal Voluntary Service.
Fact Sheets
From an in-depth
analysis to a short overview of the history and origins of some of the charities most enquired about services.
More detailed
fact sheets can be found on the Royal Voluntary Service website and include
among others:
- Hidden Histories of a Million Wartime Women - kickstarter updates
- Welfare work in
hospitals 1938 - 2013
- Origins of WVS
- WVS Housewives'
Service
- One in Five
On our
school resources pages Voices of Volunteering you’ll also find brief overviews
of many services including among others:
·
- Books on Wheels
- Clothing Depots
- Good Neighbours
- Lunch Clubs
- Services Welfare
School Resources
There are
two sets of school resources available from Royal Voluntary Service, firstly
there is The Army Hitler Forgot these
resources are for teachers of Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 3 classes, focusing on
the Home Front, drawn from the Royal Voluntary Service Archive
and Heritage Collection. Titled The Army Hitler Forgot, the
activities and pages lead school children on a journey from recruitment, to
awards for bravery and the tragic consequences of war. The resources are
available free for all. Visit The Army Hitler Forgot.
Secondly as
mentioned above we have the Voices of Volunteering resources; these resources
are for teachers to use with students age 14+ studying Citizenship, PHSE,
English language and History or who are involved in extracurricular activities
such as the Duke of Edinburgh Award. Titled Citizenship
and Service, the activities and oral histories illustrate to
students the significance of volunteering through the volunteers’ own eyes and
how volunteering has adapted to the changing needs in society. The resources
are available free for all. Visit Voices of Volunteering: 75 Years of Citizenship and Service.
Collections
There is a
very handy list of some of the collections held in our Archives which you can
find on the Archive & Heritage Collections page.
Heritage Bulletin
As you are
already doing you can keep up to date with the Archive and find out about the
history of the Charity in this blog. An archive of these blogs is also available
on the right of the page. There is also access to the six volumes of the Heritage Bulletin printed between 2010 and 2012 which provide a variety of stories about
WVS and WRVS.
Social Media
Believe it
or not Social Media can be a fantastic resource for research and finding out
about what we hold in the collection that may not be found on the main website
pages. As well as a number of Facebook and Twitter posts we have also created a
small number of vlogs and videos on YouTube and podcasts and oral history clips
on SoundCloud.
These include
YouTube
- The Hidden History of a Million Wartime Women
- A history of Uniform
- Three Heritage Bulletin Blogs
- Two 80th Anniversary Films
SoundCloud
- Coloured Thread
- Archives and Motives
- Women in Green on the Silver Screen
- Clothing Store (Oral History)
- The Gift of Time
- Bromham Hospital Fire (Oral History)
ArchiveOnline
Once you’ve
been through our extensive collection of secondry sources and finding aids you
may want to look at some primary material. ArchiveOnline is a fully searchable catalogue
contains listings, many with preview images of a selection
of historical material housed in our Archive & Heritage
Collection. It is also the gateway to our digital, downloadable version of all
419 issues of the WVS/WRVS Bulletin from 1939-1974, over 60 Oral Histories and the 84,000 pages of the
WVS Narrative Reports 1938-1945.
There is
also a guide available to help you use our extensive catalogue; Guide to searching the Archive Online.
Why not have
a go at running a search and see what you can find! We searched for New Year
there were 497 results including this 1963 New Year message from Lady Reading.
Enquiry Service and visiting
Of course if you are in need of help or can’t find what you are
looking for you can contact us through our enquiry service. Also if you are a
researcher and are interested in visiting the Archive & Heritage Collection
the collection is open by appointment only the first Tuesday and Wednesday of each month, 10:00-16:00 (closed for
lunch between 13:00-14:00). To ensure we can provide a high standard of
service, access is by appointment only and we ask that these are made at least
a month in advance. You can find more information here about this service.
We hope this brief
outline of what we can offer has given you food for thought and some New Year’s
research solutions.
Happy New
Year from all of us at the Royal Voluntary Service Archive & Heritage
Collection.
The Second World War started (in Europe) on 1st September 1939 nearly 80 years ago. WVS had been established just over a year; not long after the start of the war it was Christmas. As I was thinking about writing this blog to go out the week before Christmas Eve I wondered what the WVS were up to at this time of year. I could have chosen anywhere but one of the first documents to jump out at me was a programme of Christmas activities from Rickmansworth WVS 1939. Looking at the Narrative Reports from the area for December 1939 to 1944 you can clearly see that just because it was Christmas WVS work didn’t stop. These are just a few examples of activities in Rickmansworth, taken from the Narrative Reports.
WVS Rickmansworth, like all other WVS centres in Evacuation zones, during the war organised various entertainments for children and adults who were a long way from home just after being evacuated in September 1939. Activities included film showings, dancing, gymnastics, games, singing and parties. Over the years activities changed, in 1941 the Evacuee Club held an exhibition of needlework including clothing such as frocks, dressing gown and children’s clothes. In 1942 the WVS held two parties for under-fives which was considered a great success as you can see in the extract below from December that Year.
Of course the WVS didn’t just spend December running children’s parties they also had other duties to perform. Activities included salvage in 1941 they campaigned to collect paper from houses driving around using the loudspeaker on the WVS Van. Knitting also continued during the season of good will in 1941 47 pull overs were knitted for the Merchant Navy and members began knitting gum boot stockings for Russia. In 1942 they received an urgent request for sweaters and socks for Malta; 114lb was distributed to knitters for the job. Work with the Red Cross also continued in 1941 they had the Russian Red Cross sale for Mrs Churchill’s Fund and the WVS were able to raise £210 (c£8262.74 in today’s money). In 1942 a WVS party made soft toys and raised £59.16.8d (c£2,354.23 in today’s money) for the local Red Cross group. As you can see many activities were business as usual for WVS of Rickmansworth.
Supporting the Armed Services based in Hertfordshire was a large part of WVS Rickmansworth’s work in 1941 and 1942 with a variety of activities in December of Both Years. In December 1941 The Troops Hut was completed with electricity and lino installed. It also had a radio gram and ping pong table. The WVS opened the Hut on Christmas day for 200 men who spent the evening playing games. In Both years WVS held a concert for the RAF Benevolent Fund in 1942 they raised £18.10.0d (c£727.91 in today’s money) for the fund. Looking after the services didn’t just include the Army and RAF there was also the Home Guard to support. In Both years the Home Guard were on exercises and WVS served tea to them from a mobile canteen. Another Service provided by the WVS all year round was camouflage nets. WVS’s role garnishing camouflage nets began in the early years of the war but the scheme wasn’t official until June 1943. Rickmansworth WVS were already working on this before it became official and included other work for the services in this role as you can see from this Narrative Report Extract, December 1942.
This week’s blog has focused on WVS Rickmansworth’s work during the Decembers of 1939, 1941 and 1942. Unfortunately in our Headquarters collection of Narrative Reports there are not many for this area in Hertfordshire and we haven’t been able to look into the Christmases of 1943 and 1944. It is more than likely that these missing reports were written and one of the quadruplet copies arrived at Headquarters. However in 1970s Region 4 was heavily weeded as all regions had different rules for what was kept at that time we have less information about local offices in the Home Counties and East Anglia areas. Although this is the case for Rickmansworth you can see from just a few reports how much was going on during the Second World War and how much time the women of Rickmansworth were giving to help people keep up moral at this time of year.
Reading a number of articles, social media posts and calls
for papers once again archivists seem to be obsessed with the idea of identity.
The Oxford English Dictionary gives two definitions “The fact
of being who or what a person or thing is.” And “A close
similarity or affinity”; synonyms include: character, originality and
specification. Previously in this blog we have explored what archives are, what is an archivist and how that has changed in 20th century. There are
many topics which could be explored surrounding archives and identity; Archives
themselves are the keepers of identity for particular communities, groups or
organisations. In this week’s blog through the Royal Voluntary Service Archive
& Heritage collection we’ll explore how a charity’s identity can be
projected by its archive.
In Charity Archives in the 21st Century Matthew
our Archivist described Charity Archives as holding “the collective memory of
this vitally important part of our history” in reference to philanthropy and
charitable work in previous centuries when volunteering started to develop in
the form it takes today. So what do charity archives tell us about identity in
terms of the charity, the nation and in case of RVS in particular the character
of volunteering.
The Charity
Of course this isn’t the place for an in-depth discussion on
identity so these are just some examples of identity in archives; the whole blog is a refection of parts of Royal Voluntary Services identity and many more can be found in the archives and the work it does today. The
development of WVS to Royal Voluntary Service can be traced through its
documents but also the items of clothing it holds. Since the rise of the
teenager in the 1950s part of people’s identity has been their clothing, their
unique style. Looking through our extensive collection of uniform and how it
has changed over the years you can see why WVS was referred to as the ‘women in
green’. Over the years styles changed but not the colours showing how
recognisable the WVS and later WRVS wanted to make itself through a physical
identity and that it was an organisation that moved with the times. Along with
other organisations in the 1980s and 1990s it moved towards more casual wear.
In 2004 WRVS changed its brand identity completely losing the red and green and
going for orange and purple; a physical representation of the twelve year
transition from crown service to charity. However during 75th
anniversary celebrations WRVS became Royal Voluntary Service and went back to
red and green identifying with its roots and heritage. While the archive
represents the identity of the charity it also epitomizes the identity of a
nation.
The Nation
Our archives do not just signify the identity of the charity;
it represents the story of welfare for a nation. WVS was founded at a time when
the nation was preparing for war but also at a time when ideas about how to
care for society’s most vulnerable were changing. The poor houses and work
houses were disappearing but there wasn’t yet the provision of the welfare
state and the NHS but they were on their way. The Records of the Royal
Voluntary Service’s Archives show how WVS bridged the gap through 1939-1945
with clubs, feeding, clothing exchanges, welfare foods and many others.
Posters, Photographs, Narrative Reports and documents on policy all demonstrate
the identity of Great Britain as a philanthropic nation with many people
wanting to give their time to help those in need. Today Royal Voluntary Service still enables
people across Great Britain to give their time to help others.
A prime example is work in hospitals particularly Trolley Shops,
this year some hospitals are celebrating 70 years of having a trolley run by
our volunteers. WVS covered a whole range of hospital services during the
Second World War including supply depots, food, fundraising and domestic work.
When staff started to return at the end of the war WVS were asked not to
overlap but to still support hospital services. WVS developed a
range of services for the benefit of patients’ physical and mental wellbeing as
well as supporting the hospitals’ needs. While developing the NHS, the Ministry
of Health asked Lady Reading for support where hospitals would not meet
patients’ needs. Lady Reading of course agreed; while personal shopping
services had existed since 1946 Trolley Shops were one of the first WVS
services to appear within the NHS in 1948 by 1949 there were 183 trolley shops
across the country. For members then and volunteers today trolley shops
were/are all about providing a service to make patients feel special, to give
them independence and connections with the world outside and supporting the
NHS. A pivotal part of our national identity and in the archives this identity
can be found in photographs, publications and central registry files which help
us give local services a clear identity and heritage. The Archive
represents many identities and another of these is the character of the
volunteer.
The Character of the
Volunteer
Founder Chairman Lady
Reading was one of the first women to sit in the House of Lords, in 1958 she
had a coat of arms designed for her title Baroness Swanbrough. She wanted it to
epitomise WVS and the motto was “Not why we can’t but how we can”. Lady Reading had many strong views on the
subject of volunteering which have informed people’s own beliefs today about
giving their time for RVS services, in an interview in 1960 she said:
“Voluntary service, to my mind, is
the proud expression of responsibility undertaken by an individual as an
accepted duty”
The shelves of our archives are full of examples of that
proud expression, many selfless acts of volunteering and what it means to be a
volunteer. Oral histories and reports written by centre organisers on a monthly
basis provide us with first-hand accounts and memories of service beyond self
over 80 years of history. I know of many examples which would show you the
character of volunteering but I have chosen the following:
Narrative Report, members of Sheffield WVS after an air raid
12th-15th December 1940
Oral History Barbara Statham, rebuilding the Hospital Canteen
at Bromham, Bedfordshire (1990s)
To me these examples show how volunteers will try and help
where ever they can and shows how we can use archives to find the identity of
the concept of volunteering and use it influence us today.
Conclusion
Having a strong identity helps us to make decisions and being able to identify it from their archives can allow charities to learn about their past and look in to their future. The Royal Voluntary Service represents three identities that of the charity itself, the nation and the character of volunteering. All of these identities of course represent a charity which has been part of the fabric of the nation for 80 years. This blog has given just a few examples of the records and objects which can represent these identities; there are many more to be discovered on the
Archive Online and
Our History pages of the website.
In this week's Blog we share with you our Archivist Matthew McMurray's speech given at the OXO Tower Launch on 31st October. Although we can't recreate the electric atmosphere of that event I would encourage you to listen to get the true message of what photographic archives are all about.
Recently I have been doing
a lot of interviews.
Usually I am asked
questions like:
What did the WVS do during
the War?
or even; What is your favourite
picture in the exhibition?
The first is an easy list
of over 40 different services from garnishing camouflage nets to knitting
comforts for troops and of course the provision of food and hot drinks from
mobile canteens. The list goes on but I
have been told I only have 10 minutes!
The latter is harder, and
I am not sure I could really pick any.
There are so many beautiful and iconic images here, but perhaps these
aren’t truly representative of our organisation and the work of our members and
volunteers over the past 80 years.
Displayed here are Just 35
of about 30,000 images we have in our archive.
Despite our surroundings here at the OXO tower the work of our
volunteers has never been glamorous, in fact our founder Stella Reading said to
an audience in 1960
“In these days we are not
living in the atmosphere of drama, we are no longer being called out at night
for Evacuation or the Blitz. We are
working on day to day work which has perhaps no glamour at all, and yet which
is much more worthwhile, because in-fact it can only be appraised in terms of
human happiness”.
For every one of these
beautiful atmospheric images there are hundreds more,
less beautiful and less
perfect,
less posed.
More than a few are
slightly blurry candid shots of volunteers going about their everyday work
making a difference to ordinary peoples’ lives through their selfless gift of
their time and there energy. But a
photograph on its own can only tell you so much, and with history context is
everything.
Behind these 35 archive
images and the thousands more we have are millions of pieces of paper which give
that context, they are the stories behind these pictures which I, my colleagues
and my volunteers protect on behalf of all past, present and future volunteers
and for the nation as a whole. Our
archive is recognised by UNESCO as one of the most important sources for
Women’s history in the 20th century in Britain, and it is only
through truly understanding where we have been that we can truly know where we
are going.
Some of you will be thinking,
‘he hasn’t answered the question yet’ but I promise that I am getting to my
point.
Anyone who has read a good
novel will understand exactly what I mean.
For me photographs, like
anything else, infrequently tell the whole truth.
For me, the pictures I
paint in my mind from the first-hand accounts of our volunteers held in our
archive are the most real, the most honest and the most vivid.
Whether that is the
description of a damp, filthy basement flat occupied by an old man in late
1940s London, or the hard, unchanging and endless struggle faced by centre
organisers over the years to recruit volunteers to help them make a
difference.
These are my favourite
pictures.
Going back to the
questions though: I always like a
slightly more challenging one, it keeps me on my toes, and the other day a lady
asked me a good question.
“Why is Royal Voluntary
Service celebrating its 80th Anniversary?” the tone of her voice
said a million things the question itself did not.
That was a very good
question in the way she meant it and in the probably less than three seconds
before I opened my mouth with my mind doing a million miles an hour, which
seemed like a panicked eternity, a very simple answer came.
Why would you not
celebrate the contribution of over 2 million women and men to British society
over 80 years? A recent estimate I did,
suggests that between them they have given 14 million years of service. Placed end to end that quickly covers off the
whole of human history, passing beyond the origins of Rome, ancient Egypt and way
back into geological time when the first apes started to emerge in Africa.
To be honest I find that a
little difficult to properly comprehend; that so many people have given so much
of themselves to help others.
Looking across the river
to the City of London reminds me that ultimately the strength of a nation is
not measured by its banking operations nor by its financial transactions, it is
measured by something much more important, the character of the men and women who
are that nation.
The contribution of the
men and women of the WVS/WRVS and now Royal Voluntary Service is woven into the
very fabric of this nation. Lady Reading
called Voluntary Service a coloured thread which runs through that fabric, and without
it the fabric is neither as strong nor as beautiful.
These pictures then and
the eight new ones by Nicky which will join those 30,000 others I already look
after, are like the light shining through the crack under a door, they tempt
our innate curiosity to open that door, to look inside and to discover
something new.
Originally known as Luncheon Clubs, Lunch Clubs were a place where ‘older people, not housebound or in need of Meals on Wheels, may get a good nourishing meal on several days each week, find friendship and help whenever they ask for it, and where they can enjoy a hot meal in the company of others, always a stimulus to those living alone.’[1]
During the Second World War
WVS provided meals for older people in British Restaurants. In the immediate
post-war period meals were provided through Meals on Wheels services to some Darby
and Joan Clubs.[2]
The first mention, in the
Archives, of a dedicated Luncheon Club is the Malvern Luncheon Club in 1949 it
had 220 members and met once a month. Other Luncheon Clubs appeared through the
1950s in different areas including St Marylebone, Bakewell Rural and Mablethorpe.[3]
However it was not until
1962 when the scheme really took off and WVS realised the need to increase the
number of clubs providing midday meals.[4] Clubs provided tea,
coffee, a two or three course meal and in some clubs activities such as Bingo,
a quiz or a raffle.
Every Luncheon Club had a
club leader, cook(s), pot-washers, and servers, all of whom were volunteers
though in some cases the local authority paid for permanent cooks. In some clubs
members who came for a meal would help volunteers with the washing-up. However
in some areas the meals were cooked in kitchens outside the clubs, such as Guys
Marsh Open Borstal for the Parish Centre luncheon club in 1974.[5]
WRVS continued to provide Luncheon Clubs all over Britain for older people to enjoy a hot mid-day meal into the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. Today Royal Voluntary Service volunteers still run Lunch Clubs and there is now a Cooking for a Crowd cookbook, a collection of favorite Royal Voluntary Service Lunch Club recipes.
[1] RVS A&HC, Luncheon Clubs, 812, 1967
[2] RVS A&HC, Report on 25 Years Work 1938-1963, 1963,
Report of Ten Years Work for the Nation 1938-1948
[3] RVS A&HC, Bulletin, WRVS/HQ/PUB/BUL/BUL-1949-04,
April 1949, pp10-11, Bulletin, WRVS/HQ/PUB/BUL/BUL-1953-01, p15, Bulletin, WRVS/HQ/PUB/BUL/BUL-1954-06,
June 1954 p14, Narrative Report, WRVS/HQ/NR/R3/1958-LINC/MTP, Mablethorpe,
Lincolnshire, May 1958
[4] RVS A&HC, 807, Work for Old People, 1962
[5] RVS A&HC,
WRVSA&HC/WRVS/HQ/PUB/BUL/BUL-1974-09, Sept 1974 p11
Today we all know the importance of keeping fit and moving
around at any age. As usually Royal Voluntary Service have a history of
pioneering activities for older people before they become popular. In the 1970s
WRVS was pioneering Music and Movement classes in local communities One WRVS
volunteer who helped with this was Elizabeth Kay. In 2014 I interviewed her for
the oral history project
Voices of Volunteering. Elizabeth had first joined
WVS in the late 1960s to be a speaker giving talks about Drugs, volunteering
helped her develop this skill and she gave talks on many other topics which
also led to training as a keep fit
instructor skills she used to help WRVS set up local Music and Movement classes
in Hounslow. This is Elizabeth’s story in her own words:
“I gave a talk on history of nursery rhymes, and most people didn’t know
how nursery rhymes started and why. Oh, and I’d talk about tortoises because my
son had a tortoise which I was looking after, again people didn’t know about
tortoises and how they were creatures of veneration. When I was in China I went
to see this enormous marble tortoise which was a symbol of longevity. So yes
as, I did find giving those talks were very interesting and because my husband
had died I had to make an income from somewhere and so that’s what I did.
It [WRVS] gave me more that, it gave me more than just, mm, learning to
do the drug talks, it gave me a feeling that people liked to listen. … While I
was in the WRVS I decided because I was a keep fit teacher, I thought these old
people sitting all day in chairs not talking to anybody, long before local
authority had started, which they do now, and movement classes.
I went to our local care home and asked the matron there if she’d like me
to go in and, and do some musical movement. And so, and I used all the old
songs that they knew. Some of them I had to learn, I didn’t know there was a
song called He Played His Ukulele As The
Ship Went Down, and I got the songs from these old, I say ‘old
people’, I mean heavens some of them are younger than I am now. But, but they
were and they sat all day and they did nothing, and so I felt that this was a
really good idea. And so I, I went and we used these songs that they knew and
we did actions to the songs. Now it’s done, local authorities are doing this
all over, but at that time it was quite revolutionary and nobody had done that.
…
I always wore my uniform and as you can see one or two of them are
actually lifting their arms but they used to like singing the songs as well.
That was actually breaking new ground because it hadn’t been done until
then. I had a woman who played the piano for me and I went to all kinds of old
people’s clubs and she played the piano and I did the movements, mm, and it
was, that was then sponsored by the local authority.
One of them [the Matrons in one of the homes] apologised to me because I
used to go in to this particularly [home], if they sit in their living room,
the social room, in chairs all around because I used to say ‘Don’t put them in
rows, I like them all round me’ because I work to every single one, which I do.
And every week when I used to go in one woman used to get up from her chair,
look at me and say ‘Stupid cow’ and walk out. And matron said ‘I’m so sorry’. I
said ‘Look, if that’s the only exercise she gets all week it’s exercise, don’t
worry, she’s moved’.
…
It was, it was so satisfying because I felt that the, they just loved
having somebody to be with them and do these and think about how it used to be
when they were young, the songs that they could sing. And we used some wartime
songs as well. And before, as I say, I never knew there was a song entitled Three Pots a Shilling which is about a
gypsy selling honey from door to door. And I learnt these, I actually looked
them up. I went to Charing Cross Road to
the, the archive shop there and looked up all these songs and bought the music
so that my pianist could play them for me. And it was great. And then sadly
Greta, who was much older, was not able to do the playing anymore and so
another, another lady took over and she didn’t need music at all, and it was
lovely because she used to play for my keep fit classes.”
Elizabeth Kay WVS/WRVS Volunteer July 2016
Stories from volunteers really helps to tell the story of Royal Voluntary
Service and how volunteering has benefited society in many ways. If you would
like to hear Elizabeth’s story or those of many other volunteers in full you
can visit
Archive Online and search our
Voices of Volunteering oral history
collection.
You can also listen to the story above on SoundCloud
The second image in this week's blog is taken from WRVS Magazine No.371 December 1970
It’s another of those
famous lines from a Sherlock Holmes story “Data! data! data!" he cried
impatiently. "I can't make bricks without clay.” (The Adventure of the
Copper Beeches) but it can be applied to many areas including archival practice
particularly digitisation. Archives @PAMA recently covered the topic of digitisation
in their blog Why Don’t Archivists Digitise Everything? Part of their argument covered Meta Data and how
important it was to give archives context before digitisation. This has
inspired us, in this week’s blog I would like to look more at the importance of
cataloguing records before digitising them in relation to the Royal Voluntary
Service Archive and Heritage Collection.
What is cataloguing?
Cataloguing is the
process of creating a formal description of records held within an archival
collection. This is based on a hierarchical structure showing where Items,
files and series best fit within a collection and describes details such as the
content, context, admin and custodial history, date and access details.
Cataloguing records can help to make collections more accessible with details
and keywords which help researchers find what they are looking for and link
different records together on the same topics. If you would like to know more
about Archival description why not read Organising Archive material HeritageBulletin Volume 6.
Why is it important for digitisation?
Cataloguing is
important to digitisation because it turns a single item on its own which may
not tell us much about the activities of an organisation into a record which
has context, a history of its own and links it to the rest of the collection.
For example when cataloguing photographs, publications or posters if there are similar
items or a series relating to each other we record their references in the
Related Material Field. This helps lead researchers in looking at all the
material available on a chosen topic. Recording this data before digitising
records also gives the archivists the opportunity to assess the preservation needs
of the material and repackage it into archival standard folders, boxes, papers
etc.. It also allows of consultation on the need to digitise material and if digitised
material could be published online depending on condition, content and
copyright. This work can be very important in terms of preservation and access.
Our Collections and how cataloguing has helped make them more
accessible
Cataloguing different
parts of the Archive & Heritage Collection has allowed us to publish the catalogue records online for people to search for themselves. This work has
given the team a greater knowledge of what materials are held in the collection
and led in some case to digitisation.
Photographs and Posters
The Archive has been
focusing on cataloguing and digitising records since 2010 and started with a
collection of publicity photographs. Creating detailed descriptions of
photographs allows researchers to find photographs easily and quickly by
searching key words. Cataloguing also allows the Charity to record useful data
about copyright holders and to distinguish which images can be used in
promoting its rich history and heritage in many of the services it provides
today. The Poster collection was catalogued and digitised in 2012 which has
provided the same advantages as the photographs.
WVS/WRVS Bulletin/Magazine and WRVSAssociation
Newsletters
Over the years Royal
Voluntary Service has produced a number of publications including magazines
containing news stories and information about its activities and that of the
Association (1971-2013). Using the description field on our catalogue to its
advantage and OCR software we were able to record all the information in each WVS/WRVS
Bulletin/Magazine and WRVS Association Newsletters and make it searchable. Being
able to do such a specific search can save time in trying to find articles
covering particular services or activities. Recording months and dates also allows
us to pin point key dates such as the first Trolley shop or mobile canteen.
Narrative Reports
Between March 2012
and March 2014 we catalogued all the Narrative Reports held in the collection
which were written between 1938 and 1965. The information recorded included the
areas the reports were from and this work enabled the archive to develop the
Kickstarter Project Hidden histories of a million wartime women. The £27,724
raised via the crowdfunding site meant we could digitise all the reports
written between 1938 and 1945 and publish them online. This allows more people
access to these hugely important documents and it all started with a
cataloguing project.
In General
The items mentioned
above are also very fragile and cataloguing means we can pinpoint the exact
records we are looking for without rifling through a number of documents before
finding the correct information. Digitisation which leads on from this helps us further in preserving fragile items
as digital images are used as preservation copies for research meaning we
reduce handling the original. Cataloguing also assist with the creation of
finding aids such as the Guide to Archive Online; using data and description
fields from the catalogue means we can assist researchers in their search for
more knowledge about WVS/WRVS.
I have not included
Voice of Volunteering Oral Histories in this week’s Blog as they are born
digital records and in a future blog we’ll look at the difference between
digitisation and born digital.
Conclusion
Cataloguing is the
process of creating a formal description of records held within an archival
collection. It is important to create these records before digitising to
provide context and allow archivists to assess the need for the material to be
digitised. Working on a project to both catalogue and digitise material can
also help with preservation and digitisation which are very important activities
in archives. Since 2010 Royal Voluntary Service has been working to catalogue
its collection which as a result has led to some interesting digitisation
projects including photographs, Narrative Reports and publications. However
without the first stage of creating information about the these records this
work could not have been carried out.