1. Tony Lawrence [UK]

Edwin Miles Photographic Collection (Glamorgan Archives)

I like the ‘Edwin Miles Photographic Collection’, which has many lovely images of places in the Glamorgan area photographed around 1910. Whilst there may be more aesthetically pleasing images in the collection, this one is my favourite. I started researching my family history over 20 years ago and soon identified churches and chapels where my ancestors had been christened, married, etc, and set about visiting these places and taking photographs of them. I have Great Grand Parents who were married in this Chapel in the 1880’s. When I tried to visit however, I found that it no longer existed, and discovered that it had been demolished in the 1970’s. Over the years, I searched archives for images that may have been taken of this Chapel. So far, this is the only image that I have been able to find. So, for me, this image in the collection is my favourite.

2. Samantha Flavin [UK]

Edward Thomas Collection (The National Library of Wales)

Edward Thomas made a record of the many inns that he came across on his travels. At a time when the pub is in trouble (in 2024 50 pubs a month closed across England and Wales - Guardian newspaper 23/9/2024) I was interested in the inns documented; Red Cow, Lark, Pelican, Buffalo, Half Moon, The Catherine Wheel, George Inn, The Full Moon, Abbey Barn Inn, the Lion and Fiddle, Sun (Lyddington) and Spotted Cow (Coate), Patriot’s Arms, Foellt Arms (Llandewi Brefi), The Plough and Harrow, Llangharne; The Three Mariners, The Ship and Castle, The Fountain, The Iron Horse, The Green Bridge, Picton Arms Hotel.

I wondered which were still open and so far, have found the Spotted Cow (Coate) and the Lion and Fiddle (Hilperton) are still open. The Three Mariners closed in 1942, and The Foellt Arms at Llandewi Brefi, closed 2021. A potential pub crawl awaits.

3. Samantha Flavin [UK]

Edward Thomas Collection (The National Library of Wales)

Edward Thomas seems generally concerned about his lack of finances throughout the archive. So, it surprised me that he spared no expense when stocking his garden in 1901 from a Maidstone Nursery. I was born in Bearsted near Maidstone, and it has been another surprise to find I lived in the same Kent village as Thomas. I never knew of Bunyard’s however as it closed in 1960. Research reveals the fruit tree and rose business began in 1796, and 100 years later grew around 800,000 fruit trees in its nurseries. Thomas was in good company as a customer. Bunyards supplied half a million trees to Sudeley Castle and became the Royal Nursery by appointment to Queen Victoria. Vita Sackville-West bought roses from them for Sissinghurst in 1937. Constance Spry a famous florist also bought their roses. So, it seems Thomas spent his hard-earned cash wisely. Kent Archives hold the records of the Bunyard firm from 1796-199.

4. Kathryn Lewis [UK]

University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire Magazine 1885 - 1888 (Cardiff University Special Collections & Archives)

This description of a trip to Darjeeling is one of my favourite transcriptions from the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire Magazine 1885 - 1888. The author (A H Williams) brings the landscape to life as he takes a journey on the Eastern Bengal Railway. One of the trains he describes as being like a toy engine and carriage.

As I transcribed the article I felt as though I was also on that train. I could see in my mind’s eye the towering Himalayas in the distance, and at one point a precipice on one side and rocks on the other side so close that ferns could be plucked. The description of the slopes of the tea gardens which looked as though they had been “shaved with an enormous razor”, is particularly vivid. At a stop the author describes the scent of the roses as the air being sweet, almost sickly, which I could almost smell myself. However, as often is the case with these times there are some comments made about the local population which we would now consider unacceptable. I have never been to India, but this area sounds delightful as the “Toy Train” completed in 1881 is still operating.

5. Bianca [UK]

1. Logbook of St David’s College Lampeter Minutes from September 1875-1886 (University of Wales Trinity St Davids Special Collections & Archives)

“Mr. Stephen Jackson appeared before the board upon a charge of having violated the rules of the College by being out of college after closing of gates on the evening of November 29th without leave. The facts were substantiated upon evidence of PC Lyons.  Mr. Jackson had no defence and was required to withdraw his name from the Books of the College. Also Mr. L. Llewellyn was on a similar charge on the same date. Both were rusticated for 2 years” (rusticated - to ask a student to leave a school or university). This certainly reflects a rather stricter moral approach compared to university life today.

6. Sharon Orton [UK]

Logbook of St David’s College Lampeter Minutes from September 1875-1886 (University of Wales Trinity St Davids Special Collections & Archives)

The Logbooks for St David’s College, Lampeter can seem a little dry, but they are full of individual incidents and give an insight into the life of the College. Much more so than the minutes I used to draft for the Council and Senate of a local University.

As an example, I give you the entries for 5 November 1877 onwards where an incident is reported, that the room of a professor was entered and “sundry disreputable circumstances connected to it”. The Logbook gives full details of the individuals involved and the punishments handed down. At this point the usual Christmas Concert is cancelled but, following apologies from the student body as a whole and from individual students, this decision is subsequently rescinded. And all this in a Theological College.

7. Gavin Eynon [UK]

Mary Long's Recipe Book from the Rolls Family Papers  (Gwent Archives)

I started off trying to transcribe the recipes of Mary Long, happily assuming she must be the Rolls family cook. (I say ‘trying’ because her handwriting is very hard to decipher). But when I checked I found she was the wife of John Etherington Rolls, who she married in 1842. Charles Stewart Rolls, of Rolls-Royce fame, was her grandson. Sadly, learning she was one of the nobility didn’t improve her handwriting any.

She also uses imperial measures and lots of abbreviations, unfamiliar to us now. She doesn’t do things by half either: in this recipe for scalded brown bread, we begin with a stone of flour and a handful and a half of salt, then add two quarts of boiling water. If that gives you indigestion, then on the same page is a recipe for heartburn. You’ll need a fluid ounce of white potato liquor, and Hermit’s essence of pearl.

8. Valerie Morgan [UK]

1. Edward Thomas Collection - war diary 1917 (The National Library of Wales)

Georgiana's holiday diaries follow her journey on the yacht "Fair Flirt" around the Norwegian fiords. From riding horses to climb into the mountains to be wowed by the dramatic views and sketch one impressive waterfall after another, visiting small villages and meeting the locals or "peasants" as she calls them, being wined and dined by new friends they encounter along the coast, commenting (not unkindly) on the food, local customs and  evening entertainment, being becalmed when the wind drops and racing along when the wind blows, sailing into Christiana (now known as Oslo) and meeting a Royal Prince on his yacht and becoming quite giddy when the Prince comes aboard the "Flirt".

Every page tells you something about Norwegian society and Georgiana's reactions and impressions - she is having a fabulous holiday and loving the adventure.

9. Dana Anderson [USA]

1. Edward Thomas Collection - war diary 1917 (The National Library of Wales)

Edward volunteers to go to France, describing the hurrahs of the parting troops in Dover, to the grittiness of living under bombing and gas attacks in the trenches.

Amidst all of it, he manages to reread Macbeth.

In this selection written on March 26 – days before his diary ends on April 6 – just before his slaughter on April 9, he describes his moments in the trenches.

“…we were discovered and the O. P [observation post] 20 yds away had a shell into it & we laid several on our shoulders. Larks singing.”

To describe carrying his dead and dying comrades from the trenches is an encapsulation of the horror of war.

In his distinct style as one in communion with nature, he ends with “larks singing”.

His words speak of the universality of the human experience.

Nothing has ever spoken to me about the pain of war as clearly as this phrase.

10. Roland Humphries [UK]

Edward Thomas Collection (The National Library of Wales)

Edward Thomas’ letters to his wife Helen often contain touching detail of the daily events of his life. Recently commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Royal Garrison Artillery he writes to Helen after arriving with his men at Codford on Salisbury Plain, the final staging post before France.  They are late, there is no dinner left and  conditions are ‘very bad’. The next day Thomas takes the men on a route march along the banks of the river  Wylye. It is a ‘lovely cold clear morning’ and Thomas’s love of walking and nature is evident in his description of the men singing and the river – ‘very pretty, running as clear as glass over the chalk fragments and among watercresses’. In less than two weeks the battery will be going to France.

11. Jen [Newport, South Wales] [Project Officer]

1. Edwin Miles Photographic Collection (Glamorgan Archives)

I love this collection of photographs of Bridgend and Glamorgan, taken by Edwin Miles during the early 1900s. But I particularly love this image! It stands out as there aren’t many people in this collection because they were taken for the purpose of producing postcards. But here we have a young woman standing in front of the Old Mill Falls, Dinas Powys. Who is she? Possibly Miles’s wife Mary [they had married in 1892], although, they did have children, so this could be a daughter.

She’s dressed in a casual loose fitting cool summer tunic and black tights.

It’s hard to read her mood, is she scowling at Miles or just squinting in the sunshine? And if I concentrate, I can almost hear the water tumbling over the rocks, the buzzing of a nearby bee and our subject rolling her eyes and saying “oh, do get on with it!”