Heritage BULLETIN Volume 2 BELOW THE SHELF Did you know? In 2008 WRVS donated its large oil painting of Lady Reading to the National Portrait Gallery. Painted by Sir James Gunn in 1961-2, the picture is now on display for all to enjoy in Room 31 of the gallery in central London. Now and then This time, it is not Lady Reading who is the star of our cover picture, but the pile of papers in the background. That pile of bundled documents are Narrative Reports ready for her to review, the very same reports that have just been awarded UNESCO UK Memory of the World Status. Turn over to read more. “May the new year give you strength to undertake whatever comes to your hand, health to carry it through, and happiness in its fulfilment” Lady Reading – 1939 M J Godliman
Transcript
HeritageB U L L E T I N Volume 2
BELOW THE SHELF
Did you know? In 2008 WRVS donated its large oil painting of Lady Reading to the National Portrait Gallery. Painted by Sir James Gunn in
1961-2, the picture is now on display for all to enjoy in Room 31 of the gallery in central London.
Now and thenThis time, it is not Lady Reading who is the star of our cover picture, but the pile of papers in the background. That pile of bundled documents
are Narrative Reports ready for her to review, the very same reports that have just been awarded UNESCO UK Memory of the World Status. Turn over to read more.
“May the new year give you strength to undertake whatever comes to your hand, health to carry it through, and happiness in its fulfilment” Lady Reading – 1939
M J
God
liman
The UK register is an expansion of UNESCO’s International Register which includes documents of
worldwide importance such as the Magna Carta, the Bayeux Tapestry and the diaries of Anne Frank. Items placed on the UK register are considered by UNESCO to be of “outstanding value and importance” and are the “UK’s most exceptional, but lesser known, documentary riches”.
Many of you may have written, contributed to or read a Narrative Report in your time with WVS/WRVS but others will never have heard about them. They were written every month, later quarterly and bi-annually, by every WVS/WRVS centre organiser in the country (in the 1960’s there were over 2,000 of them) and by all accounts were universally hated by those had to write them as they took them away from doing real work for their communities.
Crawley, Sussex, March 1962TransportOld people are still being taken to hospitals and also to the chiropodist at regular intervals. A patient was driven from hospital in Crawley to a convalescent home in Worthing.
Newton Abbot Rural, S. Devon, January 1955Trolley ShopAt Newton Abbot hospital – a trolley shop in the Geriatric Section – selling sweets and cigarettes on Mondays and haberdashery on Thursdays – has been running for four years, manned by Urban and Rural members.
Halifax, Yorkshire, December 1950Darby & Joan ClubsThere have been two golden weddings in two of the clubs this month. The people concerned get a present given by the helpers who also make a cake for them to have at home – one cake was very beautiful in the form of a book beautifully iced, with inscription on the back. So much do the members value the club that one man said “I count the hours all the week till the club time comes”, and many are really distressed if prevented by illness from attending.
While their creation may have been a chore, their historical value is now priceless. They provide a unique and compelling first hand viewpoint into over 50 years of voluntary work in this country and chart the changing attitudes, styles and concerns of British society. It is not just the fact that they span such a long time period that is important, but that they describe what local communities in every corner of the British Isles were doing to help themselves. They are, in short, a record
News from PenarthRecently gifted were four volumes of meticulously kept newspaper cuttings (1939-60) and minutes (1939-40) of the original WVS Committee in the South Wales seaside town of Penarth. It tells how
Mrs Maillard (the centre organiser) turned her front room into the Penarth centre office as the council were unable to provide accommodation.
No.1 WVS Darby & Joan club, Harrow A new addition is a white damask tablecloth dated 1948-1969 with embroidered signatures. Separated into months of the year and ‘Helpers’, ‘Members’, ‘Events’
and ‘Visitors’. This is one of only two Darby and Joan Club tablecloths of this sort that we have in the collection and gives us the only information we have about the people who attended that club.
CONTACT Matthew McMurray on Tel 01380 730211 or email [email protected] VISIT wrvs.org.uk/archiveandheritagecollection
The last 6 months at the WRVS Archive & Heritage Collection have been a heady mixture of thrilling achievements, hectic planning and good old hard work. The triumph of being awarded UK Memory of the World Status by UNESCO is the highlight of my time looking after the Archive & Heritage Collection so far. It shows how important the collection is and is a real tribute to all the hard work the volunteers here and so many others have put in to sorting the collection out over the past four years.
You may have noticed that the WRVS Heritage Bulletin has expanded since the last issue, made possible by a generous grant from the WRVS Benevolent Trust. Having more pages has allowed us not only to include more stories, but also to go into these stories in more detail than we could before.
As part of our new look we will be having regular, themed features. The wooden shelf that runs across the top of each of the inside pages will have on it information about specific items in the collection; new additions, current exhibits and photographs.There is a section for your letters, the regular ‘Volunteers Perspective’ and the centre spread will be the history of a WVS/WRVS service or place chosen from your requests.
I hope you enjoy this new edition of the Heritage Bulletin and wish you a very Happy New Year.
Matthew McMurray WRVS Archivist
From the WRVS Archivist
UNESCO Award On 14 July 2010 the WVS/WRVS Narrative Reports 1938-1996 were one of only ten documents inscribed onto the newly created UNESCO UK Memory of the World Register.
of the extraordinary achievements of ordinary women.
We are so proud at WRVS that the contribution of so many of our volunteers should receive such recognition and that this award will help to lift the lid on our collection, further highlighting the work of WVS/WRVS.
You can read more about the Narrative Reports and even see a BBC news item about them by visiting the website.
From the Narrative reports
ON THE SHELF
One of the first six Narrative reports to be written in 1938.
The idea was to create an independent trust that could provide grants to WVS volunteers who found themselves in
unexpected financial need; those who had freely given their time and energy for the benefit of others.
It was started with a donation of £8,000 that Lady Reading received from her friends. The new trust wasted no time in distributing the funds and £45.83 for a night nurse, £5 for a new pair of spectacles and the grand sum of £18 for two weeks convalescence were just some of the grants in the first year.
The WRVS Benevolent Trust is still giving out grants today, to buy everything from a wheelchair to a new bed. On its 40th Anniversary the trust deposited its historic papers with the Archive & Heritage Collection for safekeeping.
WRVS Benevolent Trust. Forty years ago in 1970, Lady Reading and other members of headquarters staff set up the WRVS Benevolent Trust.
However it is as challenging today as it was 40 years ago to encourage people to ask for its help, many thinking it is ‘far too grand for the likes of me’. That is absolutely not the case. So if you are, or you know of an ex-WRVS volunteer who is, in unexpected financial need, please write to:-
The Honorary SecretaryWRVS Benevolent Fund14 Wykeham RoadGuildfordSurreyGU1 2SE
It is there to help.
Out of the box Every member of WVS had to complete an enrolment form when they joined. It listed name, age address, references, their experience and qualifications and what sort of work the applicant was willing
Stamp collector You cannot escape Stella Reading’s signature in the WRVS Archive & Heritage Collection. Virtually any box you look in will contain something with her signature on it. While the majority of these are real signatures, some are not. This
stamp was produced and used for the purpose of saving the founder chairman from the need to sign the endless circulars and large volume communications which flowed out of WVS/WRVS headquarters in London.
CONTACT Matthew McMurray on Tel 01380 730211 or email [email protected] VISIT wrvs.org.uk/archiveandheritagecollection
ON THE SHELF
to do. When Lady Reading visited the Westminster WVS office in 1952 it was found that she had never completed an enrolment form. One was produced for her to complete and this is the result.
Kath Poynter MBE in her wheelchair provided by WRVS Benevolent Trust.
Over to you
In every issue we will be featuring the two best letters received from our readers. So do write in and let us know, in 100 words or less, your stories, opinions on the Heritage Bulletin, or anything you think readers will find interesting. But for now here is a little enquiry we just couldn’t resist trying to answer. One of the volunteers took up the case.
Dear MatthewA number of WVS/WRVS ladies served with Gurkha Regiments and are held in the highest esteem. We have been donated
the MBE and WRVS Long Service Medal of Phyllis Castle. She served with 6th Gurkha Rifles in the 1960s. We are trying to trace further details and if possible a photograph of her to mount with her medals for display at the Museum. Are you able to help?RegardsGavin Edgerley-Harris – Curator Gurkha Museum
Tracing individuals, and especially photographs of them in the collection, is almost never successful. However, in
this case luck was shining on us. After a trawl through the Services Welfare records and finding no trace, a little bit of detective work later we found out she lived in Cheltenham. We have one box of material in the collection from the Gloucester County Office and in it was a file of newspaper cuttings from the 1960’s. Opening up the file, on the very top, was a cutting from 1968 with a picture of Miss Castle outside the palace after receiving her MBE. Amazing!
‘Cataloguing photographs isn’t just about slavishly typing in what is written on the back of a photograph. It is much more complicated and in many cases it’s a real detective story. It is so important that we are careful about the way we describe the photograph because all the descriptions have to be consistent, both in the words they use and the information they provide. You also have to put yourself in the place of the person who is going to be searching to find a photograph and think ‘if I was looking for this photograph what would I search for’. For example this means making sure that you remember to put the county in the description, which sometimes presents a special challenge with obscure places.
While a lot of the photographs have at least some information
written on them, often it is very sketchy or sometimes completely missing. Dates, places and especially the names of the people in them are just not recorded. We have become quite adept at working out a lot of information by examining the photographs, sometimes using a magnifying glass. Names can be gleaned from name badges and uniforms and badges are fantastic both for general dating and discovering where photographs are from. We have even got dates from car tax discs.’
Each photograph takes about 10-15 minutes to catalogue and some longer, so we have a long road ahead of us. But at least it is a worthwhile and fascinating one.
Thank youAfter being inspired by Lindy Wood’s example several people have written to us saying that they plan to leave a legacy to the WRVS Archive & Heritage Collection. As a charity, whose purpose is to help older people get more out of life, WRVS is restricted in the funds it can use to support the Archive & Heritage Collection. These legacies, generously promised, will help towards securing the future for our past.
Our main focus for 2010 has been to start
cataloguing and repackaging our substantial photographic print collection. This contains about 5,000 images covering at least 297 different types of services that WVS/WRVS
have provided from the very beginning of the organisation in 1938 up to about 1988.
While you may imagine describing photographs for the catalogue sounds easy, the reality is much more challenging as the volunteers found out. Pearl Reading, one of the volunteers explains.
Cataloguing our photographs
ON THE SHELF
Photographs from the Collection. Each issue will feature a few pictures from the archive along with their official description (see article below). This time we are focusing on services that we provided for children which were a big part of WRVS work from the 1940’s to the 1990’s.
Cleaning children’s gas masks at BathA member of the WVS stands at a wooden bench using a scrubbing brush to clean a gas mask. Other masks wait in a bowl on the table to be cleaned and in the background more are pegged out on a line to dry. Bath, Somerset.Date: c.1939-1945
Birmingham children on a WVS children’s holidayThree WVS members and a WVS hostess stand with a group of eight children from Birmingham, sitting on their suitcases at Hereford railway station, Herefordshire, with
a train in the background. From left to right, Miss P ?? of Hereford WVS, Anonymous Birmingham WVS member, Miss V Machin of Hereford WVS and one of the children’s hostesses. Date: c.1950-1959
CONTACT Matthew McMurray on Tel 01380 730211 or email [email protected] VISIT wrvs.org.uk/archiveandheritagecollection
Did you know?The WRVS community centre in Eastbourne, home of the WRVS Heritage Plus Project, is named after Dr James Russell. Dr Russell, a well known benefactor of Eastbourne charities, gave a substantial donation for the refurbishment of the centre which he attended regularly, enjoying lunches, social events and meeting friends. Sadly he passed away only a few months before his 100th birthday so didn’t see the completion of the project.
“...in many cases it’s a real detective story”
Heritage Plus Performing personal memories to a sell-out audience, sharing evacuation experiences with school children and taking part in a film about their local community are just a few of the highlights people experienced as part of the WRVS Heritage Plus project.
Funded by the National Lottery through the Heritage Lottery Fund, the project ran in Sussex from 2007 to 2010, celebrating and recording people’s personal life experiences.
Focusing on reminiscence-based activities and events in WRVS Community Centres and local venues, Heritage Plus brought older people together, many of whom were socially isolated.
Every aspect of local life was explored from school days to courtship, World War II and other local topics. A small collection of aural history recordings was also produced with long-standing WVS/WRVS volunteers from further afield.
If you are interested in finding out more about WRVS Heritage Plus visit their website heritageplus.org.uk
Now that this hugely successful piece of work has come to an end, the records and archive of WRVS Heritage Plus have found a new home in the WRVS Archive & Heritage Collection in Devizes.
subtly changing in style and material over the years. We have measured these garments for storing and have learnt how to pack them, layering and stuffing delicate areas with tissue paper. I am finding the whole process challenging but very, very interesting. I have learnt such a lot about the organisation I first joined in 2005, volunteering for the Home Library scheme in Swindon. I meet so many characters on my round, leave books in interesting places (including the middle of lawns and brick outhouses, to name but two) and really enjoy chatting to the older people and frequently end up getting home late!”
“Following an inspirational talk by Matthew, Barbara and I have travelled regularly from Swindon to Devizes to help with the archiving. We have sorted, counted and read hundreds of leaflets, brochures and pamphlets. Thousands of photographs have been scrutinised for clues to date and categorised. I have found the numerous letters fascinating for their detail and have often been moved to tears reading about the gratitude that individuals and families showed to the work of the WRVS.
Sorting through the boxes and boxes of uniforms was also a major task; overcoats, suits, dresses, blouses, skirts, hats, scarves, tabards and aprons,
If you want to know more about the WRVS Archive & Heritage Collection you can visit our web pages:
wrvs.org.uk/archiveandheritagecollection
If you have a story to tell or material which you would like to donate to the collection please contact Matthew McMurray the archivist.
WRVS Archive & Heritage Collection, Unit 1A Bath Road Business Centre, Bath Road, Devizes, Wiltshire, SN10 1XA.
Unfortunately because we need to concentrate all of our efforts on cataloguing our collection we can’t offer a general enquiry service at this time, but it will re-open in the future.
Contact us
A volunteer’s perspective – Gill Rees
Gill Rees works on sorting the new material from WRVS Heritage Plus.
Every reasonable endeavour has been made to find and contact the copyright owners of the works included in this newsletter. However if you believe a copyright work has been included without your permission, please contact WRVS.
