...And windows and doors, and books and papers, cutlery and crockery, needles and thread, hats and shoes, necklaces and rings, armour and weaponry, pots, pans, hats, gloves, trinkets, coins, stamps, postcards, mirrors, candles and all manner of ordinary objects from daily human life- if any of these very everyday objects could give voice to their existence, what many hundreds of stories might they tell? Of the many hands and lives through which they passed; of the many different adventures, whether upright or underhand; of the letters they wrote, the battles they fought, the scenes they lit and the bodies they adorned. And now, in a time more material than ever before, if our vast treasures of personal odds and ends could speak- what stories might they tell about us?

Certainly, there is a power to be felt in the presence of an object, no matter how seemingly mundane, when we know that it has a story to tell. We encounter coins upon a daily basis, and they are therefore nothing short of ordinary- but what of a coin exchanged in remuneration between an Edinburgh doctor his and murderous accomplices? Between a publisher and a soon-to-be famous author in exchange for their latest novel? Furthermore, objects are not only eternal ‘witnesses’- they frequently have a far more active and even pivotal role in the unravelling stories. What of the sword which sealed the fate of King Charles I so long ago- and changed the course of a nation’s history in its wake?

A great part of my doctorate research focuses upon the power of the object in the telling of stories- stories of time and of place, but most crucially, of people. I focus on one particularly eighteenth-century practice of material culture- the practice of antiquarianism- and through this antiquarian lens I explore the works of nineteenth-century Scottish author Walter Scott. Scott was an avid antiquarian collector himself, boasting in his expansive collection at Abbotsford House the sporran and skene-dhu of Rob Roy; a crucifix carried by Mary Queen of Scots on the day of her execution; an oatcake found in the pocket of a deceased Highland soldier after the battle of Culloden; the door of the Old Tolbooth prison and countless other relics and remains. Scott surrounded himself with these objects, most often objects providing a material testimony of a chapter of Scotland’s past, and through the contemplation of these threshold presences he entered a romantic world of Scotland’s past which he wrote into his many fictions. Indeed, amongst the pages of his poems, novels and scholarly writings are scattered the material relics and remains of Scotland’s past- and very frequently, those objects were artefacts which were in his possession at Abbotsford.

Yet I think that Scott’s enthusiasm for unravelling the stories deeply entwined in the material remains of the past is an instinct alive in each of us- from family stories and personal trinkets, to the great archaeological discoveries that significantly change our knowledge of a time and place- in each case, our desire emerges from a wish to know the story hidden away, which reveals something of the past to the people of the present. And a part of this desire perhaps too comes from the hope that one day, it will be the small and trivial, grand and monumental objects of our lives under a similar scrutiny for story.


Lucy Linforth

Contact the Elderly is a national charity that changes the lives of lonely older people. Many people over 75 spend their days alone - isolated from family or friends, and are often too frail to leave home without a bit of help. We have small local groups all over Scotland, England and Wales, with 8 groups in Edinburgh, each with about 6 to 8 older guests and 4 to 5 volunteer drivers. One Sunday afternoon a month each local group meets for tea, cake and company. Our volunteer hosts take it in turns to welcome these older guests and drivers into their homes for a couple of hours, and our drivers pick up 1 or 2 older guests, take them to the tea party, enjoy the cakes and fun with them and drive them home safely afterwards.

I got involved as a volunteer about 5 years ago, having responded to a radio appeal on how lonely many older people were. I thought I could host tea parties as we live in a bungalow so no stairs to climb, [and I enjoy eating cake!], and I could also be a driver as one afternoon a month didn't seem a big commitment. Of course as I saw what a difference these outings made to so many older people I got more involved as a group co-ordinator and then 2 or 3 years ago as the Edinburgh Area Organiser. My role [still as a volunteer] is to make sure our existing Edinburgh groups are supported and that guests or volunteers who leave or move are replaced quickly with new people. I also help to start new groups, recruiting volunteers and identifying older people through referral organisations or following up enquiries from older people or their families/friends. We have now grown from 3 to 8 groups.

The best part of my role is going to meet all the potential new volunteers and older guests in Edinburgh who apply or are referred to us, and talking to them about what we do. I then see them taking part in a group usually a few months later and having a lot of fun...yes, the volunteers and the older guests. It really does make a huge difference to us all. As we say in our publicity, "Life fills us with stories, stories fill us with life". We volunteers love hearing all the amazing stories of all our older guests, once they start telling us about their lives, travels, families, jobs, war experiences, Edinburgh years ago...

We not only have tea parties in people's homes but some companies, hotels and the Lord Provost have also hosted tea parties for some or all of our groups. We were very pleased when a group of Edinburgh University student volunteers hosted a tea party for 3 groups in March, and are really looking forward to the June tea party hosted by the PhD researchers for this project. One lady of 93 told me after the student volunteer party that she felt rejuvenated by talking to all the students!

Contact the Elderly is very keen to develop links with Universities to promote inter-generational links and friendships between older guests and students or staff at tea parties, bring university campuses and local communities into closer contact, provide an enriching volunteering scheme that fits into university life and help students' CV and career prospects.

Anne from Contact the Elderly. Visit Contact the Elderly's website here.

(@contact_teas)

As you may have read on Alex’s post last week, recently we on the At Home in Scotland scheme have been attending and participating in a number of workshops designed around the idea of storytelling. We have learnt about the importance of landscape in our storytelling, explored the idea of quests and trials in stories (fairy tales and episodes of Emmerdale!), and discussed the benefits to be drawn from framing your research in a story-like way. However, the part that I found the most interesting (in a slightly narcissistic way) was the bit featuring me in a leading role.

One of the activities that we did in the storytelling workshop was based around the standard trope of many fairytales and myths: THE QUEST.

I was (obviously) the hero of the story. During my quest, I had to get through a series of ‘trials’ - gate keepers, monsters, and ogres (played magnificently by my fellow workshoppers) blocked my path to the Goddess and therefore to my transformation from everyday PhD student to…well I’m not sure, but I’m going to assume Goddess PhD student. The form of the trials: an interrogation into why I thought I had the right qualities and knowledge to continue on the path that I had chosen. The questions ranged from technical questions about my methodology to personal questions about my previous interactions with violence. Most of the questions revolved around why I thought that I should be the one researching this topic, and whether I had enough passion and resilience to continue on. It got me thinking…Why Me?

Firstly, it has to be said, I am no stranger to the ‘why’ question. Let me explain.

I am researching militant nationalism in the Irish diaspora during the nineteenth century - basically, why did some people in, for example, Chicago, decide that they wanted to use their money to fund armed rebellion and dynamite campaigns to try to intimidate the Westminster Government into giving Ireland political independence? And why did others, in my case in Melbourne in Australia, decide that the best option was to give money to political groups to find a peaceful way of achieving Irish independence?

If I was Irish, and possibly male, this subject probably wouldn’t raise many eyebrows. However I’m English – with few discernible blood ties to Ireland – and female. One of the first things people ask me is if my parents are Irish. Usually straight after this is ‘so what got you into Irish history?’ My motives are relatively dull - a rather vocal Irish community kept popping up whenever and wherever I studied history: British, American, Australian (okay, they didn’t get into the Japanese history that I studied but that’s not the point). I’d been interested in The Troubles when I studied politics at school, and this interest just continued to grow – and regress a century – with all the references to the Irish throughout my undergraduate studies. I’m not sure where the interest in violence came from, I don’t want to blame it entirely on ‘Criminal Minds’ and other such shows. Maybe it’s because, especially with political violence, for me since 9/11 it’s always been there. Lurking. For my parents it had been the IRA attacks. Before that the Cold War and the threat of nuclear warfare. Every generation in practically every country since the late nineteenth century has felt, even if it’s not an everyday worry, the backlash of political arguments played out in the streets - attacking civilians and public monuments. This age of the ‘terror alert’ is not new and it’s important to realise that.

I love listening to how people came to their research subjects - how did someone from Cork get into researching the music of East and West Germany? How did someone from North Carolina become so passionate about Medieval currency systems in Britain? Sometimes it’s just one overheard comment that spurred them on, sometimes it’s a personal experience that led them there, a story that they heard which made them want to dig deeper. We’ve joined this scheme to tell stories about our research, but I think it’s important to remember that the story that got you here can be truly enchanting too.



Sophie Cooper

(@SophcoCooper)

A lot has been happening as part of the At Home in Scotland project since the last post. There was the well-attended symposium on stories of place last Friday and two separate storytelling workshops for project participants this week. 

The symposium welcomed speakers for short presentations on their research with the theme of story and place. We heard a wide variety of interesting projects, everything from the stories of Scottish Italians during the war to modern theatre to archaeology. A point repeatedly stressed is that when it comes to education and engaging the public, telling a good story is invaluable regardless of whether you are in a museum, library or archaeological dig. A second point common to many of the presentations was the responsibility you carry when listening to, or repeating personal stories. Stories can be intensely personal and need to be handled with care!

The second event I attended was a storytelling workshop led by Dr Michael Williams. This was a day of learning how to tell better stories. Now, oral storytelling isn’t my cup of tea. There is something uncomfortably intimate and group therapyish about sharing stories with near-strangers that I find awkward and at odds with my sense of personal space and ‘proper’ emotional distance. I’d rather read a book. However this workshop was excellent. I was already convinced by the value of a good story in engaging people with what you have to say but it was very useful to get some practical guidance on storytelling. We covered how and why you might choose to tell stories in academia, some practical techniques, and a bit about the underlying structure of a good story.

If a story conforms to our preconceptions of how a good story should unfold it is more satisfying and engaging. This is just as true when communicating research as it is with fairy tales. A story a very human method of communication that is much more likely to be talked about and shared which is often what we want in academia. Of course an academic paper should conform to certain strict standards and for good reasons, but when you are presenting something at a conference or down the pub, a good story can be the better choice. The very best and most engaging of the TED series of talks are good, simple stories.

I have only recently started my research project looking at at enabling the location-based searching of books so I don’t have much of a story to tell yet, but when the time comes to communicate the value of what I do, I will be looking to the Hero with a Thousand Faces for some guidance.

At Home In Scotland reminds us that we construct our lives and our works using age-old narrative formulas without necessarily giving due consideration to the mastering of those techniques. For myself telling stories has always come easily, but I can still remember a period in my life when they were consistently of a certain sort. Lies, chiefly. When I was fifteen, an undercover detective discovered me in a public park with four cans of cider and a copy of the June 1998 Playboy secreted in my combat trousers. I told him my name was John Meade. I told him I lived at 16, Roman Street, Gurranabraher and where I went to school. This tall tale ended when one of my colleagues in criminal libation, eager to witness my predicament but unaware of my elaborately conceived alias, truthfully responded to the detective's enquiries regarding my identity. Having failed to learn my lesson I later used the same alias when registering my first mobile phone in an attempt to escape government profiling in the burgeoning digital age. There then followed over the next few years a number of befuddling call-centre conversations as the mobile phone company and I somehow managed to alter my original alias into an entirely new one; unrecognisable to either of us. At one time I used this non-fictional material as the basis for fifteen minutes of original stand-up comedy. This was least successful when I tried to use the changing aliases as the backdrop to a fictional family feud and most successful when I used swear words. I only used one swear word. I stopped telling tall tales for a while.

After finishing my undergraduate degree and leaving my nascent comedy career behind, I worked for a number of years in theatre and watched other people tell stories. People tell stories with song, scripts, chicken wire and fabric, as well as pie charts, branded pens and lies. I sometimes wondered what stories you could tell without lies. When I returned to university to do a Master's degree in musicology at the University of Edinburgh, it felt like a good idea in large part because of how well I thought it would slot into my own personal story. Academic achievements come with a compelling order of progression that commend them to parents and those uncertain of what they should do next. I am now nearly at the end of my first year of research as a PhD candidate; and it still feels like a good idea. I feel more comfortable with the academic pursuit than I thought I might because, whatever theoretical frameworks and conflicting methodologies I may come to grapple with, at root I feel like I am telling a story. That still interests me more than anything.

The story I am researching focuses on broadcast and recording studio practices in a Germany divided for forty years by barbed wire, concrete and antagonistic world views. Sometimes I think the division of Germany, Berlin and its people by an impregnable wall sounds like the set-up for one of the more budget-conscious episodes of Star Trek. One of those ones where seemingly insurmountable prejudices towards odd prosthetics are solved through humanistic principles against a backdrop of badly curated “alien music”. But as contrived a plot device as the Wall may seem its effects were concrete and pervasive and even now have not been fully understood. Despite the eventual fall of the Wall, I know that any story I tell will not have the neat ending that a unified Germany might suggest or that a story or tall tale might demand. If my desire to tell a story is the motivation for my work, I guess that academic practice is what I rely on to keep it honest. I’m hopeful the successes of my thesis won’t rely too heavily on swear words.


Cormac Ó Callanáin