I recently discovered that Edinburgh City Archives holds a set of passport records issued by the Edinburgh Lord Provosts between 1845 and 1916 (ECA reference GB236/SL165). Helpfully these have recently been made available online through Ancestry.co.uk and are available with digital images and partial indexes with a paid Ancestry subscription.
I discovered them because I was doing another occasional online Ancestry search for my ggg-grandfather John Usher Somner (1829-1879) from the Scottish Borders. And was stunned to find him show up in these records, which were new to me. On 14th August 1851 John Usher Somner obtained a passport along with his cousin Richard Somner Frier. Both were heading off to Paris of all places! I have included a portion from the relevant record page, to show the kinds of details recorded in these records.
Obviously this raises lots of questions to me as a family historian. Were the two young men off on a holiday together? Both were still unmarried. Also fortunately for any travel plans both came from relatively wealthy families. What was the prompt for their trip at that particular time? And what might they have seen and done when they were in Paris? Did they travel anywhere else?
For genealogists the records tend towards the wealthier members of society. You needed to have a certain amount of disposable income to travel overseas for personal reasons at this time. The Ancestry indexing/transcripts are also somewhat unreliable, so you may have to be creative. The keyword search does allow for some searches by home address, but again with that proviso re transcription quality, and also that places could be written down in many varied ways, and there is no standardised indexed version.
The records also open up possibilities for academic researchers. Though I suspect that poring page by page might be more appropriate here. Which is also available through Ancestry, where you can step through images. What sort of people were applying for Edinburgh passports at this time, and from where in Scotland (it looks from first glance to be much of Lowland Scotland at least)? Where were they off to, and are there patterns that develop over time? What sort of groups look to have been travelling together, with multiple passport applications at the same time? What does this tell us about this sector of Scottish society and their experiences of elsewhere in the world at this time? So many questions.
I have already found more relatives in these records. But am now musing the academic research possibilities. And even with the indexing issues they are a compelling data source.
Note the date ranges of browseable Edinburgh passport record images available in Ancestry are as follows:
This year marks 50 years since ABBA won the Eurovision Song Contest with the song Waterloo. I don’t remember watching, though would have seen it with my parents. But I was extremely young, born only two years earlier. However in the following years I quickly adored ABBA music, though much else in the 1970s passed me by! As we got into the early 1980s, the last years of ABBA, I especially appreciated their later songs. And that love continued to the present day.
I thought I’d draw up a list of my top 10 favourite songs. Prompted by recent ABBA favourites lists, such as this one from the BBC’s Radio 2 and its listeners. It is incredibly hard to pin down just 10 favourite ABBA songs. But here are the 10 I’ve chosen. Not in order of preference, but in chronological order of release:
Thank You For The Music
Knowing Me, Knowing You
Angeleyes
Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)
The Winner Takes It All
Andante, Andante
The Way Old Friends Do
Head Over Heels
I Let the Music Speak
One Of Us
I can’t order the full top 10 by preference, but here are my top 3 favourite ABBA songs of all time that I can confidently pull out:
1st. Andante Andante
2nd. The Winner Takes It All
3rd. Knowing Me, Knowing You
Five years ago I was lucky to be able to visit the ABBA Museum in Stockholm. I would thoroughly recommend this to any fellow ABBA fans out there. Though allow plenty of time for your visit! There is so much to enjoy.
First go trying some Tarot reading! Approaching this as a way of reflecting more on my life / circumstances / what I want to do. Also I have a soft spot for playing cards. The Tarot deck I’m using is designed by Night Circus author (and artist) Erin Morgenstern. I think this is something I’ll keep returning to from time to time for contemplation and inspiration.
End of another year, and time for another end of year reading retrospective from me, looking back at the books I read for fun in 2023. I adore reading, despite my progressive neurological disease meaning that I am often heavily sedated, and struggle hugely with print. Most books are read with an utterly gigantic font on my Kindle. But I gobble up books. I even have a PhD in historic Scottish reading habits, so it’s nice when I can gobble up books myself, and not just stare longingly at past historic readers who in some cases could read more than me!
This year I finished 60 books, almost 20,000 pages read, average 375 pages a week. Of these 42 of the books were fiction, 17 non fiction, and 1 a poetry collection. Here is a link to my full list for the year on Goodreads. And the picture below shows a glimpse of some of the books I was reading over the months.
20 of the books were fantasy genre, and 7 graphic novels or manga or comic books. Fantasy remains my favourite genre by far, and I can still read and enjoy graphic novels and manga despite my neurological problems with print. 8 books I would categorise as historical fiction (with some overlap in cases with the fantasy count), but just 6 were scifi. I read some scifi – especially Doctor Who novels – but am not a fan of hard scifi. Despite adoring since childhood first Star Trek and then Doctor Who, Babylon 5 and others. But reading is mostly about fantasy for me. I also have a fondness for children’s or YA fiction from time to time, and read 9 of those this year, ranging from old classics to modern. Only 5 of my reads this time were horror genre.
In some recent years I’ve reread a lot of much loved novels for comfort. There was less of that this year, though I reread a few, such as my annual pre-Halloween read of Roger Zelazny’s A Night in the Lonesome October. I continued my slow Wheel of Time read, with 3 more novels in that series – up to the end of number 7 now, and hoping for another couple next year. Though I’ve tended towards shorter rather than longer novels. I also read some novels for the book club I’m in.
I am surprised by how many non fiction books I gobbled up. I read these alongside fiction, flitting between the two night to night. And I had some really good non fiction reads this year. In fact when I look at my top rated books and think about which books made the biggest impression on me in 2023 it’s 3 non fiction books that stand out most.
The first two were read at the very start of the year. Firstly Mensun Bound’s The Ship Beneath the Ice: The Discovery of Shackleton’s Endurance, which was a very rare in print read for me, after I managed to nab a signed copy from my local bookshop in Broughty Ferry. Even knowing the ending of the story this was still a gripping page turner. And I cried tears at the end. Another tear jerker, though happy too, was Rob Wilkins’ Terry Pratchett: A Life With Footnotes: The Official Biography. Which was a deftly written biography of a much loved author, and so phenomenally insightful. I was delighted later in the year when it won the Hugo Award for best related work.
The third standout non fiction book was The Climate Book, written by Greta Thunberg and many many others. This is probably the most important book I have ever read. Certainly the most affecting. It’s devastating in many places, but something I needed to get to grips with. And there are seeds of hope in there. But yes, just read it.
Although my favourite books were non fiction I’d like to mention my favourite fiction books of the year too. Firstly Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree, which was a cosy fantasy, combining a traditional fantasy world and characters with the comfort of coffee shop culture. So good! Another standout was Bob Mortimer’s comic novel The Satsuma Complex, another award winning book, which had more than a hint of Douglas Adams about its writing. It felt almost like another Dirk Gently book. And so very very funny. Finally, classic scifi The Technicolor Time Machine by Harry Harrison sees a film crew go back in time in a time machine to film a Hollywood blockbuster, with totally authentic scenery and cast – real Vikings! This was utterly bonkers. A joy.
Looking ahead to 2024 I’d like to reread The Lord of the Rings, and also Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens – both some of my most favourite books. And long books, so I’ll be aiming more for quality than quantity. Would also like to get through a couple more Wheel of Time books. And read more books in translation. But yes, just keep reading!
Sixty years ago today Doctor Who was first broadcast. I started watching it 15 years later, in 1978, aged 5. And my dad and I were both immediately hooked. I’ve loved it ever since. I fell away as a fan in the wilderness years, even somehow missing the 1996 TV movie at the time! But I was back as a fan that day in 2003 when it was announced it was returning to TV screens. It was like I’d been hit by a runaway fandom truck! My husband had barely seen it before then, though had been a fan since childhood through the Target books. He didn’t have a TV at home as a child. But he was about to see masses! And luckily he adores it too. For me Doctor Who is less a scifi show and more a wonderful storytelling engine, able to tell all sorts of different stories in different times and places. We’ve enjoyed watching all the eras on TV, and I’m very excited to see what’s coming for the 60th anniversary specials and upcoming Christmas special and new series next year. Long may it continue.
I’m a book historian, with a PhD in historic Scottish reading habits. For many years I have been a member of SHARP, the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading & Publishing. I have also attended numerous SHARP academic conferences in person, since 2005, presenting papers at a number of them. Though now attendance in person isn’t feasible any more for me, given my progressive neurological disease.
During the Covid pandemic era some of the SHARP conference content has been available to view online, though this has been varied by year in terms of number of online events. However this year, 2023, the conference was run completely online, organised by the University of Otago in New Zealand, but streaming worldwide, both to watch live and on catchup. This way speakers and attendees from all over the world could participate.
I was too ill to offer a talk this year, and also too ill in late June to watch the conference live. However I’ve just enjoyed watching it on catchup. Talks as originally streamed via Zoom were available for paid attendees to watch on catchup through August, using a web browser Zoom interface (which my laptop browser was a bit flaky over, but we got there!). I had also printed out the programme, and noted which talks were of most interest to me to watch, given my limited time. Here are the panels I watched over the last couple of months:
Readers on Bookstagram
Eighteenth-century Libraries Online: An Introduction and Showcase
Special Collections’ Pedagogies as Immersive Encounters
Dickens as Author and Publisher
Networks of Support
‘They Are Books to Me’ (Until they Aren’t): Reader Experiences of the Realness of Electronic Books.
Traces of Readers
Black Voices in North American Colonial Print
Counterculture and Collections
Censorship in Spain and Mexico
Reading Together and On Screen
Digital Platforms and New Opportunities in Book History
Most of these panels had a couple of speakers plus a chair. I must thank all the speakers and chairs I saw, for what was a very efficiently run series of talks. Plus thanks to the people taking part after in the Q&A sessions for each panel, even if as a catchup viewer I was not able to take part in the live Q&As myself. And enormous thanks to the technical team keeping things running smoothly, and to the organisers of the conference. Though I was surprised there was no directly provided chat facility to assist networking and communications between attendees. For example a Discord facility could have helped here.
My own book history research focuses on reading habits, primarily in seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth century Scotland. However I have wider book history interests, both in time and space, and also theme. So I was delighted to watch many talks from this conference. Every single talk I watched inspired me in some way or another, whether it be research questions, interesting areas new to me to follow up, or methodology or presentation. I was constantly taking screen shots of interesting things for later followup.
A particular highlight for me was Laura Dietz’s keynote on electronic books. Due to my progressive neurological disease I have struggled increasingly with print books since the late 1990s, including throughout my PhD. I am a passionate advocate of ebooks as a valid form of reading, and angry that this can be dismissed too readily by some readers and also some academic book historians. If I’d given a talk to SHARP this year it was going to be a very personal one about my own experiences as a disabled reader who is both academic book historian and enthusiastic reader, and relies on ebooks for accessibility reasons. Laura’s talk touched on this, discussing results from a survey researching in this reader. And some of the people who had responded echoed my views. So I felt represented.
I am also an enthusiastic member of online book groups, so talks about Bookstagram and communal book club reading appealed. Likewise learning about Black book history topics was enlightening. And of course familiar areas to me, such as the Liverpool Eighteenth-Century Libraries Online group presenting a demo of their database plus initial findings.
I know that there is a push back towards face to face conferences, including in SHARP. But I hope that online streaming – and some form of hybrid – will continue to allow access to the conference for people who cannot be there in person, whether for economic reasons, disability or health risks, family or caring commitments, or aspects of geography. SHARP 2023 has been a delight for me, even on catchup. I hope that SHARP 2024 will be too.
This passed me by in previous years, but this year I was lucky to find out in time about the Cymera festival of fantasy, scifi and horror writing. It takes place in Edinburgh, but in recent years due to Covid has been online too. It took place in early June and I bought a digital weekend pass. This let me watch events streamed live, but more importantly let me also watch after on catchup. I had until today, 3rd July, to watch them, and have been putting in the time in recent weeks to get through as many as I could. Today I watched my last talk, my 22nd. This is a quite incredible tally for seriously ill me to have managed. And as someone with a very restricting neurological illness (I am mostly bedbound now, and asleep most of the time) it was a marvellous opportunity to watch and enjoy things from home at my own convenience that in the past you would have to be there in person to see.
I watched a huge list of panels and author chats, as listed below. Initially looking through the programme before the event I spotted 3-5 events that immediately jumped out to me. Events taking place live in Edinburgh that were streaming too, or Zoom chats that would be available to watch either live or on catchup for digital ticket holders later. However because I bought a digital weekend pass (£50, though available earlier at £40) I could watch *everything* recorded live and on catchup. And in practice I ended up watching way, way more than even I could hope. Not all the talks aired, but a huge number of them.
Folkways with JJA Harwood and Kit Whitfield
Cityscapes with Adrian Tchaikovsky, E.C. Hibbs and J.L. Worrad
Expanding Universes with Aliette De Bodard and Ann Leckie
Dead Weird with Gemma Amor, John McGlade and Heather Parry
Unlikely Friendships with Travis Baldree and Heather Fawcett
Haunted and Hunted with Fiona Barnett, Anya Bergman and Catriona Ward
Catching Up With Helen Sedgwick
War Stories with Gareth Hanrahan, Anna Smith Spark and Ian Whates
The Epic’s New Clothes with Sharon Emmerichs, Juliet McKenna and Claire North
It’s Grim up Norse with Thilde Kold Holdt, Shauna Lawless and Suzie Wilde
N.K. Jemisin in conversation with Tasha Suri
Daring Deeds with Justin Lee Anderson and Sebastien de Castell
Adventures in Time and Space with A.G. Riddle and Gareth Worthington
Catching Up With Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Connection, Interrupted with Nina Allan, Cory Doctorow and Ian McDonald
Catching Up With Brent Weeks
Yesterday’s Tomorrow with Nicholas Binge and Christopher Priest
New Scottish Stories with Paul Tonner, Letty Wilson and Ell J Walker
Of Gods and Dragons with Amie Kaufman and L.R. Lam
Dangerous Magics with Chelsea Abdullah and Hadeer Elsbai
Underworld with C.K. McDonnell, Sarah Painter and Adam Simcox
CyberJunk with M.R. Carey, Dave Cook and Ever Dundas
The order in which I watched the events above isn’t representative of what I was most intrigued by. I could flit from event to event, and saved some of the best to last. Many were two or three-author panels based around a theme with a chair person. Others were single author chats with a chair by Zoom.
The range of fantasy, scifi and horror writing covered was immense. There would rarely be a panel where I wouldn’t be adding titles to my book watch list, or even buying something immediately. Some authors I knew already, but I discovered many authors new to me, whose works I now want to read. And despite watching so many of author events I was impressed by how little overlap there was in terms of content. Every panel or chat would give me new insights and experiences into the writing process, as well as touch on the specific themes of that panel and introduce me to the writers and their books.
I would like to thank the organisers for allowing streamed access like this. It was so enabling for me, and as a reader and writer myself I am throughly inspired by having watched these. I would also like to thank the festival team for managing the technology and practicalities so well. This was a very smooth operation. I will definitely be back to watch next year. Though aiming to book my digital weekend earlier so I can benefit from the reduced early bird weekend pass price!
Really interested to see the report about this new move by the Heirs of Slavery group in the Guardian newspaper today. There is a remarkable and sad resistance by many in the UK to its involvement in and benefits from the slave trade. There are undoubtedly racist elements at play here. But also an unwillingness to face up to the history as it was, rather than they would like it to be. Plus “It was the rich! Not us!” is a common refrain. Or in Scotland people will cry “But what about the white slaves?”, which is not a valid comparator either.
It is not only the very wealthiest families that have slave owning ancestors. My 6xg-uncle Thomas Usher from Melrose in Roxburghshire, Scotland, son of a small laird and farmer, went to Jamaica and owned a plantation and slaves. Three of his brothers were also involved in the slave trade. I descend from a different Usher brother. I have written before now about this part of our family history, but plan to write more. There are newspaper advertisements placed by Thomas for runaway slaves that I intend to collate and write up properly. This is a shameful part of my family history, but I’m not going to cover it up, or pretend it didn’t happen. Nor was this the only slave owning family from tiny Melrose in the Scottish Borders.
I am also working on a new research project, in my academic historian guise, trying to uncover more of the story of black servants in late eighteenth century Scotland. I have found almost 100 references in surviving Scottish tax records, and am writing up the story for an academic journal paper. I am aware that looking at black people purely as servants is problematic. But it was the way that many black people appeared in Scotland in this period, and it is a story that needs to be told.
Anyway all best wishes to the Heirs of Slavery group, and for a fuller reckoning by the UK, both its government, royal family and general population, for the role of slavery in its past and present prosperity.
Really loved being able to watch – via YouTube – my home town Hawick’s rugby team win the Scottish Premiership final today. They’d topped the table after the normal matches, but it then went to two semis and a final for the top 4 teams. Today’s match was from Hawick, which has had snow for much of this week. But the club and the townspeople did a miraculous job keeping the pitch covered, then making it playable today. That was one of the most nerve wracking endings I have seen to a game of rugby. Hawick scored the winning try in the last minute or two. For much of the previous half they’d been defending heroically. Credit to Currie. But yes, champions! And I got to see rugby from the ground I used to be a spectator at so very many times. Proud Teri.
I’ve been a bit too offline the last couple of days to post my proper thoughts re Nicola Sturgeon resigning. I’m a SNP supporter and an indy supporter. I am very sad to see her go. But I also respect what she has done for Scotland as a whole. I think that people outside Scotland, and especially in England, often don’t realise how popular a leader she is for many in Scotland, and how much her social democracy measures are appreciated here. It is too easy for pro unionists to look on from outside and view her as a minor and irrelevant figure. When for many in Scotland she is greatly appreciated, and does an important role. I wish her all the best in the future. I hope that we get a competent leader in her place. And I hope for democracy for Scotland and all.
![A portion from the handwritten passport page, including passports issued on 14th August 1851. For each person their name is given, a brief address, and where they are off to. Plus a number. So e.g. "Somner John U - Kelso Roxburghsh:, Do [Paris]" and "Frier Richard S. - Fans Berwicksh:, Do [Paris]".](https://vivsacademicblog.files.wordpress.com/2024/05/passports.jpg)
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