THE SCOTTISH WOMENS HOSPITAL ARCHIVE: WOMENS CONTRIBUTION TO WW1

This was a talk by archivist Lyn Crawford exploring the contribution that the women of the Scottish Women's Hospitals for Foreign Service made to the First World War. Fourteen hospital units were set up in France and Serbia and were entirely staffed by women - from surgeons and physicians to cooks and chauffeurs.

This Serbian Documentary gives a tribute to Scottish Nurses contribution to that severe and forgotten front.

"It was during a visit to Belgrade, Serbia that I was first made aware of the Scottish Woman’s Hospitals and the work they did during the First World War. What saddened me was that the women involved are known about and revered in Serbia, yet their work and achievements are barely recognised in the country they came from.
In Serbia one will see statues, monuments and streets named after these women, although in the place they came from these women have been virtually completely overlooked. Britain likes to make a show of celebrating and respecting heroes of war, and even in some cases fictional accounts of war heroism in film, but has not acknowledged the work, bravery and altruism of these women in a time when women did not have a presence of being involved in direct conflict and were certainly not encouraged to do so."

This website gives more information of the background and contribution of these Scottish Nurses more celebrated in Serbia than Scotland.

Virtually all the leading lights and members of these organisations were suffragettes or believers in the movement.Their contribution and organisational skills gave vital experience , and eventually led to Woman getting the Vote in the 1920s.

THE LARGEST , LONGEST , OLDEST and SMALLEST BOOKS at MITCHELL LIBRARY JEFFREY ROOM

This was a very rare opportunity to see some of the most unique items from the Mitchell Library's "Treasures" collection including our largest, longest, oldest and smallest books.

 As part of this commemoration of World Book Day I had the pleasure with two other people to see Glasgows own original of the worlds Most valuable Book . Only 120 exist in the world , our one is even rarer as it has original descriptions by the author himself.
Many of the birds featured are now extinct , with the drawings being the sole examples of their appearance in existence.
No image you see of the prints can do justice to the exquisite three-dimensional vibrant colours and hues that can only compare to the marvels of Ishfahan for sheen and shading.This Guardian article gives more details about Glasgows finest treasures.

" "Birds of America is most significant for its sheer beauty. It's a masterpiece of illustration," said Richard Davies of rare and used book specialist AbeBooks. "Aside from being famous in the rare book world, Birds of America has also immense historical and ornithological importance. Some of the birds John James Audubon painted are extinct and he also discovered new species.""

you can see more images from the Book by scrolling down to the bottom of this link .The drawings feature the types of vegetation the birds habitat was located in and the types of prey they ate.

This documentary examines the Author and the Book



The other remarkable Book was an original print of Samuel Johnson  A Dictionary of the English Language

Not to be confused as a dry work this is a unique example of satire , parody and exemplary scholarly research that has had a profound effect on future generations from the time it was published in 1755.The copy we saw was opened at the page beginning with the words "oats" , the description spends more word mocking a parodying a rival of Johnson that it does on the etymology and explanation of the word , though what it does say is very detailed with an exacting methodology which has a scientific approach that would have been rare even in the sciences in those days.Though satire is the main idiosyncratic feature .
Oats. n.s. [aten, Saxon.] A grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.

This BBC Documentary records Samuel Johnson and his monumental work.

The longest Book is a elongated pictorial record of the funeral procession of the Duke of Wellington  which goes on for many dozens of feet.

The oldest Book featured is a Dutch Bible ( written in that language rather than Latin) which was printed in 1440 , which makes it a very new "old" Book as it would have been made barely a year after the first Guttenburg Press came into being in 1439.

THE TALE OF IYA at the GFT

Demand to see this film was so popular it had to be shifted to the largest cinema at short notice.



Director Tetsuichiro Tsuta  and Cinematographer Yutaka Aoki were on hand to take a Q&A after the screening.

This review from The Telegraph gives a gushing appraisal for the young director who has brought to the screen a very sophisticated theme capturing the alienation , emptiness and angst of being a young modern Japanese looking to find a rounded sense of the technological age.

 "This is a work of instant and startling brilliance: a novelistic, heart-bursting elegy to wildness – and when words like "wildness", "hidden" and "Japan" are mentioned, the names of Shohei Imamura and Kaneto Shindo can hardly be far behind them. Tsuta’s picture, shot with a sunburnt vividness on 35mm film stock, certainly owes a debt to Japanese New Wave works such as The Naked Island and The Ballad of Narayama, but it feels less like the work of a fan than an apprentice."

The film has a long middle in which characters walk from one corner of the screen to the other in various states of detachment from their faculties , but when we finally get to the point  we see that it was necessary to show the lack of substantial depth of stability of the newer generation as compared the the old , generous , chivalrous values of the elders still attached to the old samurai order code rooted to the Family , community and closeness to the land.