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Letters in Lockdown – A series of bulletins written during the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic by Museums Officer Joanne Turner for our dispersed museum volunteers and seasonal staff Part 4: 22 July – 9 September 2020

22 July I hope this finds everyone well. It’s a pretty wet Wednesday here in Dumfries. Firstly today, I asked Jan (our Robert Burns Centre attendant) for some thoughts on her current role within the “Test and Protect” service: I hope we never speak on the phone or in anything other than my substantive Museum Attendant capacity. Why? I am currently redeployed with the NHS Dumfries & Galloway Contact Tracing team. What’s contact tracing then? Put simply, this is the public health practice of informing people when they’ve been exposed to a highly contagious disease, in this case COVID-19. Lockdown and ‘Stay At Home’ stopped the initial exponential transmission of the virus. Now we work to slow down any fresh outbreaks. The Contact Tracing Centre is notified automatically of any positive test results and the team gets to work on the phones. The goal is to quickly interrupt the spread of COVID-19 by reaching out to people who test positive (and people they have been in close contact with) and provide advice and support for them to isolate. This has to be done immediately, since an outbreak can very quickly double or treble. Infected people classically begin to show symptoms within two to five days of exposure, although it can take up to two weeks, and they will likely be contagious before symptoms appear. The window to catch the infected before they themselves become infectious is a narrow one. Countries with effective contact tracing are well placed to get back to whatever version of ‘normal’ the future may hold. To the list of Japan, Germany and New Zealand, let’s hope we can add ‘Scotland’. In our latest staff briefing, Gavin Stevenson our Chief Executive thanked everyone for their work during the last few months, and referred to the Full Council meeting coming up on 30th July as the next stage in us “getting back to normal”. This is when the Restart, Renew and Recover reports will be considered, and from there we will hopefully get approval to go ahead with our plans for re-opening in stages over the coming weeks. Fiona, Lydia and Siobhan in particular have been very busy working towards reopening our venues. They toured them all last week and have detailed notes of what is required. They have drawn up a provisional timetable for each of our six venues including finishing off painting, setting up exhibition displays, the delayed Spring cleaning, Risk Assessments and other documents, staff inductions and training, setting up

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ticketing systems, introducing visitor flow measures, PPE for staff, new hygiene measures, revised staff rotas and opening times, new cleaning regimes and probably lots of other things. The timetable is a work in progress and not all venues are going to re-open, but we do know that the Call Centre at Dumfries Museum is scheduled to cease operating on 22 August – freeing up the venue and the staff.

Here are Lydia, Siobhan and Tom with the Council officials visiting Sanquhar Tolbooth Museum last week (below) and Lydia checking the jail (above). The floral displays are still looking lovely. Hopefully they last until the people from Purplebox Productions film their 360 degree footage of the Tolbooth on Friday. This will create a virtual tour of the building for our website (before the Covid signage goes up!). With Rab still out of action, Tom and JoAnne will be getting the place spruced up for the cameras. Stephen is working with Fiona to write a script to accompany the footage. If the project is successful, we hope to create films for further venues - for people who cannot access them in person. I have had a chance to do some documentation in the last few days – focussing on the objects in the Old Bridge House Museum and trying to work out if they

can be matched to any records in Adlib. Where they can, it reveals where the item came from – and when. Mostly they appear to be 1950s and 1960s donations. Jane (aka Miss Marple) has been helping me with this – although the record descriptions often just say “bellows” or “teapot” and I can have six of each which I cannot match up. In those cases, I just have to create a completely new record and number, then move on. Once the list is complete, Lydia plans to check over, number and photograph all the objects in OBH in the coming months – creating better records, and allowing us to make more use of them online.

Lydia is spending some time in several of our venues at the moment - with routine tasks and re-opening preparations. Here she is at Annan Museum re-assembling the longcase clock which had to be moved over the winter while the flooring was renewed. JP is assisting and they are both wearing their masks – but how difficult is social distancing with some elements of our job! They have put the paintings back up in the hallway as well. Lydia tells me her next task is to change the case alarm batteries at Robert Burns House. I expect she’ll use the opportunity to give the cases a good clean inside as well.

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Carolyn sent me this photograph showing the progress of Rabbie the Burns Street snake.

29 July Last Friday I dropped into work for the first time in 128 days. The longest spell I have been away from Dumfries Museum in 23 years (by a long way). How odd not to be working in my slippers! It really brought it home to me how much time had passed when I changed my calendar over from March - straight through to July. There are new Council notices up everywhere in the museum. These two have appeared by my desk, and Lydia’s desk. It was lovely to see Vivienne again, and catch up with Tom. Even with just the three of us on duty we had to be careful to do the 2 metre dance around each other. Having worked in silence at home for so long, it was strange to hear other people working close by. Tom in particular (based at the reception

workstation) was answering all sorts of Council related questions on the phone – from bus pass renewals to waste collection issues - and then he had to break off to take delivery of the large quantity of hand sanitizer dispenser units we’ve ordered for our venues. I managed to get through my list of several tasks that I couldn’t finish off at home. And at last, I was able to open the parcel that had arrived from Nashville a few weeks ago. It contained the little silver snuff box promised to Annan Museum. There was a surprise message inside when I opened the lid.

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Carolyn got a surprise yesterday when a lorry turned up at the Robert Burns Centre. It was the delivery (a day earlier than arranged!) of our new seating for the film theatre. The upgrade work was scheduled to take place before Easter, but had had to be put on hold. The seating arrived on four pallets which needed to be broken up to get them into the building. To Carolyn's relief, a passer-by (one of our Council Street Services colleagues, pictured here) stopped and helped to unload the lorry. So Carolyn says a big thank you to Simon from Street Services! Hopefully I'll have a further update about the refurbishment next week for you. The filming went ahead at Sanquhar Tolbooth Museum last week. JoAnne took her husband along to assist with the preparations. So thank you to Craig for tackling the stubborn moss on the steps. And here’s Abby and Steve from Purplebox Productions creating the film – we are looking forward to seeing what they put together for us.

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Angela is one of our permanent visitor services staff – based at the Robert Burns Centre (so perhaps some of you will not have met her). I caught up with Angela to ask how she is getting along, and she wrote this to us: Hi everyone, I hope you are all keeping well.

I was taking annual leave when the news came through that the Museums were closing. Dave and I had spent a couple of days on the Isle of Arran which we very much enjoyed - taking in the pink beaches in the sunshine and the dramatic island backdrop as a storm rolled in off the sea. We came across some very chilled deer who were

completely unfazed by yet another tourist taking their photo! That time away for us was our last sense of normal as we knew it - as by the time we arrived home things were beginning to close down rapidly. Since then workwise, checking in with Vivienne daily has become a new normal and is a much appreciated opportunity to keep in touch with work life. As has been searching "Future Museum" for suggested artefacts for Fiona's social media posts. The weeks since March have been a time of rediscovery, for example listening to our CD collection, wondering why on earth we had bought some, and not listened to others more! Recipes have been unearthed, Scrabble has had many airings, and jigsaws are very much "en vogue" in our house. The latest of which has been a 1000 piece version of Klimt's "Poppy Field". A challenge indeed, four weeks of patience and finally the last piece was slotted in. We had our monies worth. The glorious Spring weather offered great conditions for walking, something I have enjoyed every day especially being fortunate to be surrounded with views on a clear day of The Pennines, The Lake District hills and Criffel. Apologies in advance to non-football fans, but those of you who are, will understand my joy as Liverpool, after 30 years, have been crowned Premier League champions! Looking forward to when we are able to welcome visitors again. The webinars and online training completed have provided an insight into how things will work differently when the Museum doors reopen. It will be really nice to see everyone again, until then look after yourselves. Hopefully, we will have some news soon about our potential opening dates.

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5 August Firstly this week, we welcome Rab back to work – a permanent member of our visitor services team. He has returned to his duties at Sanquhar Tolbooth Museum after extended sick leave – meaning Tom and JoAnne can stand down. Not before Tom discovered this unexpected visitor to the gas meter cupboard last Friday though. Tom says they were both a bit surprised. The rather large frog must have squeezed in under the door – the cupboard is within the public archway under the museum steps – but how the frog managed to get to the Tolbooth, surrounded by roads we've no idea. Last week we got the go-ahead from Councillors to proceed with our plans to re-open our venues. We have taken delivery of some of the necessary supplies and additional equipment already. Lydia has been busy unpacking it all for distribution to our different locations - for the public areas, first aid kits and for staff to use:

We have also been discussing the relative merits of the visor versus the face mask when greeting the public.

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You might find it helpful to refer to this interactive map that Museums Galleries Scotland is updating as more and more museums and galleries reopen across Scotland – here’s a snapshot of today – hopefully we’ll get lots of red dots in the South West very soon.

The good news is that the Robert Burns Centre Film Theatre seating has been installed. I spotted some images posted on social media which I share with you here. Those of you who are regular visitors to our screenings will see that we have gone from this, in shades of green. Temporarily to this.

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And then to this – with the new seats fixed in place. They appear to have row and seat numbers as well - and are very bright and cheery, ready for the return of our customers.

Finally, in traditional museum style, I have a mystery object for you today. Working in a museum, people show us all sorts of peculiar items that we no longer have a practical use for. Christine has been asked to identify this implement.

Does anyone know what it might be (I do miss the books in our museum reference library)? Has anyone seen anything similar before? If so, do let me know!

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12 August Here’s the good news we can reveal, at last!

The provisional plan is to open for pre-booked visits from Tuesday to Saturday, from 10 or 11am until 4pm (with some lunchtime closures). Anyone who wants to drop in with donations or for enquiries is being encouraged to contact us in advance. Some of our venues are missing from the list, including the Camera Obscura, because they are considered physically too small to re-open at the moment. Vivienne and Siobhan have worked on new Visitor Services staff rotas. We will form teams assigned to a specific venue, covering close to contracted hours, and where possible, minimising travel to work distances, so some of our staff will be working in a different place to usual. Hopefully, once we are settled back in the office, we will see how our systems are working, and be able to look at putting arrangements in place so that our volunteers can return as well. So today, the schools, nurseries, and early learning facilities are re-opening! It will be interesting to see how that goes. There is a “Recovery Curriculum” in place for the first few weeks of term - to help everyone to re-adjust to school life and adapt to the new measures that have been put in place in schools.

Christine says thank you to everyone for their feedback regarding last weeks mystery object. A few of you suggested what we think is the right answer, but Ruth C-B, one of our seasonal staff illustrates it best:

I was looking at the mystery object on Joanne's volunteer news this evening and I suddenly realised it reminded me of my modern grill pan handle. I've been searching the internet and there are such things as antique hot plate handles which look very similar. At a guess they enable someone to carry a hot plate to the table for serving? Could the mystery object be one of those? Here’s what I found:

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This is a more ornate example – described as dinner plate holders, they are perhaps for serving a fish course on a platter?

Last week, Fiona and Lydia planned to spend two days in Dumfries Museum setting up our new display about textile conservation. In the end quite a lot of their time was taken up with other logistics – including materials and signage to order, and deliveries to sort for distribution to our venues ready for opening. They managed to start placing the objects into the re-furbished balcony case and said it was so good to be working with our collections again. Here, Lydia is installing a militia jacket, known as a coatee, from the early 1800s. The jacket has been part of Dumfries Museum’s collection since 1948 and was acquired via the Dumfriesshire and Galloway Natural History and Antiquarian Society. It was conserved in stages by students at the University of Glasgow Centre for Textile Conservation - Jennifer Beasley, in 2013 and Alice Young, in 2014.

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It’s good garden weather at the moment - with the alternating wet and sunny conditions. Carolyn has taken the opportunity to prepare the entrance area of Dumfries Museum for our (perhaps queueing) visitors: I did the tidying up of the wildflower garden at Dumfries Museum over the week-end. I also planted up that gap beside the canopy, painting an edge-line round it too, just to make it safer and to get rid of the scruffy cone that’s been there so long! However, more importantly, JoAnne and Craig McKay, have very kindly offered to work their magic by revamping and re-seeding the wildflower bed in the next week or so – therefore, we can look forward to it being absolutely magnificent come Spring.

Is anyone now reaping the benefits of planting things earlier in lockdown? I’ve had a bumper crop of potatoes and the tomatoes in the greenhouse are looking promising. Insects or caterpillars enjoyed the row of lettuces but I might get a handful of carrots very soon. I’m really pleased with my sunflowers this year.

At the weekend, we missed out on an Ebay purchase for the collection. This splendid bottle came up for auction from a local vendor. The innkeeper, John Thomson is recorded as having a collection of Burns related objects on display in his premises. It is so unusual to find a bottle preserved complete with its label - we have lots of bottles in our collection with no labels attached. Hopefully it has gone to a good home - I’ll keep this image for our records.

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Meanwhile, we were successful at the recent Lyon and Turnbull auction in Edinburgh. Unusually, several Robert Burns related items were available at the sale. We were pleased to hear that some of the manuscripts will remain in Scotland. Meanwhile we secured this modest, but at the same time splendid item: It’s a gridiron for the fireplace (the angle of the photograph is a bit misleading). It comes with paperwork indicating that it belonged to the Burns household at the time of the sale following Jean Armour’s death in 1834. The document states that: In the evening after the roup, there was a lot of old trumpery – useless for anything save as relics of the Bard – in an upstairs room. It will be good to re-instate this piece in Burns House where it can be of interest once more. I hope everyone is doing well – enjoy the sunshine.

20 August Booking has gone live on our website if you want to arrange a visit to Gracefield or Kirkcudbright Art Galleries: https://www.dgculture.co.uk/ Gracefield Arts Centre is admitting people at thirty-minute intervals and the Kirkcudbright Art Gallery is admitting people at fifteen minute intervals. Visits are for one hour. The Broughton House Artist-in-Residence, Ewan McClure has his own “Solo” exhibition at Kirkcudbright Art Gallery until the end of October. The recent news of extra funding being awarded to the National Trust for Scotland means that the artist Edward Hornel’s gardens at Broughton House will be opening to the public again next month - much to the relief of its local supporters. Hornel’s garden is one of my favourite places to visit in Dumfries and Galloway. I should have included this splendid image from our collection last week as we approached the 75th anniversary of VJ Day (Victory over Japan Day):

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We can see the people of Dumfries gathered at the Midsteeple to mark both the surrender of Japan and the end of the Second World War. Provost Ernest Fyfe read the Proclamation of Peace announcing cessation of hostilities in the Far East on VJ Day, 15th August 1945. He is accompanied by Magistrates, Councillors and Officials. Everyone is there – from the Provost in his regalia at the top of the steps – to the wee boys in bare feet at the bottom of the steps. Christine, JP and Fiona were very busy in Annan Museum last week. As well as cleaning the place, they took delivery of a long awaited new display case - with a high specification for security and environmental control. It was assembled on site by the company, and is designed to move to the upper gallery in the lift. I wonder what’s going to be in it first? Our exhibition plans for the 2020 season had to be abandoned – temporarily, hopefully. The dinosaurs have been guarding Dumfries Museum for the last few months and remain in place to observe the return of our visitors over the coming weeks. Meanwhile, Fiona has collected and set up our Autumn exhibition in Annan Museum – kindly on loan from The Devil’s Porridge Museum. The exhibition examines the theme of “Love in Wartime”, particularly the First World War when about 12,000 women came to work at HM Factory Gretna, to produce weapons.

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As well as setting up the exhibition, Fiona and JP still made time to collect and store our most recent donation to Annan Museum: The A-board was rescued by the architects who were redeveloping a property on the High Street in Annan. That’s JP wrapping it so it can go to Dumfries for some cleaning and conservation work. It is double-sided and the other side is less well preserved – but hopefully Lydia can do something about it before we put it on display. I wonder if this brings back memories for anyone? Does anyone recall Baird’s in Annan? It would be good to add some notes to our records.

As the lockdown has eased, working at home has introduced all sorts of new background noises. As well as the usual strimmers, lawnmowers and children playing outside, the trades associated with the building sector have resumed their activities. Last week I had a particularly disrupted time when our windows were replaced. They had been much delayed and at one point we thought the company might not survive - and disappear with our deposit – thankfully, this did not happen. It was the first time we had had people inside our house for months! Siobhan has had some work going on at her house too, she told me: When I decided to move nearer town there were two conditions, the new house was not to be a project and it should have a small and manageable garden. I found a house fairly quickly but didn’t move in for three years. It only took three months to make it habitable, the rest of the time was spent waiting for other things to happen. Now, just over a year later, work is finally starting on the garden. My excuse is that I hadn’t noticed the tree roots and paving because they were hidden under a collapsed potting shed and a jungle of bracken, brambles and ivy – so machinery has had to come in and do the initial groundwork for me. Here’s the before and after so far:

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The long suffering digger driver assures me that the soil is excellent – perhaps why the area was originally a nursery. Here’s the area shown on the 2nd edition 25” OS map of c1900.

This is a busy couple of weeks for staff getting our venues ready for re-opening. Much has already been done but there are still a few things to put in place. In the coming few days, the visitor services staff are meeting up to familiarise themselves with the venue they will be working in, and with the new arrangements and procedures. We are being trained in best practice for cleaning, and on how to operate the online ticketing system. Hopefully, I’ll be able to tell you more next week. Until then, have a good week.

26 August

I was in Dumfries Museum on Monday for our staff training sessions – so I have a few photos to share with you this week. The Call Centre at Dumfries Museum has been stood down and (hoping there isn’t a second wave) we have all our redeployed staff back with us. I think they wanted to hang onto the call centre people a bit longer as they have been so good (and are now so much more familiar with the workings of other Council departments than the rest of us!). Everyone I spoke to was glad to be back to their museum duties and looking forward to welcoming back our visitors. On Monday we were shown the new arrangements for receiving visitors, Siobhan went through the risk assessment document, Carolyn arranged a fire drill, a Council cleaner came to tell us about the cleaning regimes adopted by other Council buildings and Tom explained the online ticket booking system. It was good to see everyone in person although we did have to wear our masks most of the time, and we had to do the 2 metre dance quite a lot. I expect it was quite strange for those who have been used to having the place to themselves for so long, to have an influx of colleagues. This was the welcoming committee when I arrived at the museum!

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We’ve had a bit of a swap around with the portrait busts. The two brothers, Wellwood and Alexander Maxwell of the Grove and Glengaber are now promoted from the back staircase to new plinths (higher and safely out of reach!) either side of Walter Newall in the main hall. They were both sculpted by local artist, John Currie. Siobhan said that the McBurnie’s Removals staff were very helpful in moving them all for her, and fixing the plinths in place – and they were very careful with their handling of our heavy sculptures.

Fiona and Lydia have reconfigured the galleries to allow for a one way system. This lady is fully rested and keen to see visitors back in the museum – meanwhile, Big Al is very puzzled by the addition of the hand sanitiser dispenser:

Christine is looking forward to welcoming visitors back to Annan Museum. Unfortunately, we are not able to have our regular team of volunteers to accompany her just yet, so instead, Christine will be joined for the next two months by visitor services staff from Dumfries - JP, Bob and Angela – as well as our newest member of the team, Marlien.

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Vivienne and Siobhan have adapted the staff rotas so that we have separate teams at each premises covering a Tuesday to Saturday timetable. This will have to be looked at again when our seasonal staff contracts cease at the end of September / October to enable us to keep the Robert Burns Centre and Dumfries Museum open safely throughout the winter. Online bookings are now live for those wanting to arrange a visit to one of our reopening venues. If people are unable to access the internet, they can telephone Alex at the Midsteeple Box Office (Tel: 01387 253383, Tuesday – Saturday, 10am-1pm) and he will take the booking for you. We are taking admissions every half hour. This is for a half hour or full hour visit – depending on the location. Bookings at Annan Museum and the Robert Burns Centre are admitting 4 people at a time, while Dumfries Museum can take 11 and Sanquhar Tolbooth Museum can take 6. Adding in the number of staff in the building as well, this takes us to the allowed capacity for each premises. The front desk at Dumfries Museum is already kitted out with its screen – and the way out for visitors will be via the windmill tower where another workstation has been set up:

In the offices, both Lydia and Vivienne have been given screens to sit by their desks (not easy to photograph!) as they sit so close to the main thoroughfare. We are going to have to get used to looking at each other through plastic for a while. Finally, here’s an item which is part of the “Love in Wartime” exhibition opening at Annan Museum next week. I can use it here to say “good luck” to all our visitor services staff (who have been brilliant and versatile throughout this peculiar 2020 season) as they, at last, open our doors to welcome visitors:

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2 September Good Afternoon everyone, Joanne asked if I would send you a message this week, in her absence. I hope you are all well and have been able to do a few more of the things that make you happy. I visited my family recently and spent some lovely hours with them, enjoying sunshine and sunsets in their gardens.

Yesterday was an exciting day at work as we opened back up to visitors for the first time in 167 days! Below are photos of Carolyn cutting the council ‘closed’ notice off our gates and the very first couple of visitors looking around the main hall:

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We’ve had a few visitors at all of our open venues and are hoping that we get more bookings for the coming days and weeks. It is a big step after being closed, mostly working from home and planning the re-opening for such a long time so it feels good to start to progress towards some sort of normality. Fiona spent yesterday in Annan Museum in case any assistance was required there and Siobhan, Vivienne and I were at Dumfries Museum. We were pleased that everything went fairly smoothly. Things are definitely quite different to usual and I’m sure we’ll all learn a lot over the coming weeks about how to adapt our work to suit the times. You can see some of the screens, hand sanitisers and floor stickers in our photos below, as well as some of the team who were ready to welcome our visitors.

Paul, Jan and Stephen at the Robert Burns Centre.

Karen at Dumfries Museum and Jane at Sanquhar Tolbooth Museum.

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Marlien and JP at Annan Museum. Our website gives more information on how to book to visit any of the council museums and galleries that are open and visitors can call to book a private visit to Robert Burns House, only one person or household group at a time. We hope that people might find it quite special to have the house to themselves for an hour.

We aren’t able to have the normal museum trails for children at the moment but hopefully they will like the dinosaur footprint floor stickers that will show them the route around Dumfries Museum (5 different types of footprint for them to spot) and the bird footprints that we have at Annan.

It has been a shame to miss so many of our planned exhibitions for the past few months but we are pleased to be able to open Annan Museum with an exhibition on loan to us from The Devil’s Porridge Museum, “Love in Wartime”.

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We still have Dinosaurs in Dumfries Museum and have a new textile conservation exhibition in one of the large cases on the balcony. It features a variety of objects that have been worked on by students at the Centre for Textile Conservation in Glasgow, over the past seven years and has lots of interesting information about the treatments and analysis that have been carried out.

Here you can see three of the christening gowns that are on display. I created little forms to support them out of a clever material called fosshape. It’s like a thick felt but can be moulded and hardens when heated. In the photo you can see the form that I made for the gown in the centre of the photo. It is the first time I’ve used the fabric but it was very useful for displaying these gowns and I am sure I will find plenty more uses for it in the future.

Sending my best wishes to you all, have a nice week.

Lydia

9 September

Flag flying seems to have become a theme for these bulletins!

The Emergency Services Day flag was raised at the Midsteeple in Dumfries this morning to mark 999 Day. The Council observed a two minute silence at 9am (today being the 9th day of the 9th month) to remember those emergency services personnel who have died as a result of their service to us. 2018 was the first year it was marked.

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Here’s another flag – the Red Ensign - which was hoisted at Sanquhar Tolbooth Museum last week to mark Merchant Navy Day. Merchant Navy Day has been marked across the country on 3rd September since 2000. It honours those who kept the UK afloat during both World Wars, and celebrates our modern day merchant seafarers.

Thanks to Lydia for sending out a bulletin last week – it’s her turn to have a break and take this week off. I’m usually quite lucky with my holiday weather in September – but not last week! Never mind, we still managed a couple of day trips (along the coast, and to Threave Gardens) which was quite a novelty in itself. My mother came to stay with us - which was a welcome change for her.

I am back mainly working in the office for now. It’s Wednesday and I’ve still not unpacked the bags of folders and files that I came into work with on Monday morning!

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Colleagues have done a lovely job of getting the public areas ready for our visitors. I think we are all getting used to seeing signs and screens wherever we go, but ours look particularly neat. Here's a new view from Dumfries Museum - our visitors now leave via the windmill tower and go down the original 1836 entrance steps. We had 152 visitors at Dumfries Museum last week – fewer in our other venues, but still well worth opening for. Unfortunately, we have had to close the Robert Burns Centre temporarily (as a precaution) while we await a Covid-19 test from someone who had been in the centre, then reported flu-like symptoms. We hope to reopen very soon. The Jaggy Thistle Bistro is able to open as usual because there is appropriate separation between the museum and the bistro. The “Love in Wartime” exhibition at Annan Museum is proving popular with visitors and attracting local people to view it. Fiona spoke to a local florist who provided us with some decorative silk floral arrangements to bring it some colour. As well as appearing in the Annandale Observer last week (relating to Doors Open days 2020) staff at the museum had a lovely surprise when the granddaughter of Janet Beattie visited the museum:

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Janet’s wedding dress was previously donated to the Devil’s Porridge Museum and is now on loan to Annan Museum as part of the “Love in Wartime” exhibition. One of six children, Janet was born at West Bowhill Cottage in Cummertrees. By the age of 14 she was working as a servant for John Thomson, the minister at Greenknowe Manse, Annan. Janet got married to William Grierson in Annan during 1910, wearing this dress:

We have added in a few items to the displays at Dumfries Museum. You will recall the faceless clock that stood between the windows by Lydia’s desk? Well, at last, it has been assembled and put on display (on the left). It is an early clock – 17th century. A manuscript sheet written by the antiquarian Charles Kirkpatrick-Sharpe is pasted inside the case and suggests that the clock belonged to Sir Robert Grierson, 1st Baronet of Lag. It is a 30 hour brass dial clock with a single hour hand and bell striker. We have decided not to keep it wound up as someone would have to wind it every day – which isn’t very practical!

Lydia has also swapped out one of the watercolours of Caerlaverock on the balcony (to rest it) – replacing it with a lovely watercolour by Chris J Fergusson of the Dumfries War Memorial beside St John’s Church. She must have painted it from the upstairs window of the house she was living in at the time.

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Just in time to celebrate “Doors Open Days” in Dumfries and Galloway at the weekend, our new virtual tour of Sanquhar Tolbooth Museum filmed by PurpleBox Productions went live to the public on YouTube: https://youtu.be/aSXMkruCu9U There is also a 360 degree version of the tour that allows you to manoeuvre the camera view as the tour progresses through the building: https://youtu.be/M2MyRTJEsIM The latter version is best viewed using Google Chrome where you have a reasonable internet speed. Of course, most of the annual Doors Open Day activities had to be online this year - and are still available to explore here if you wish to: https://www.facebook.com/doorsopendaysDG

We are slowly getting back to the routine elements of our work. The first Loans Box went out yesterday – to a school in Gatehouse of Fleet! They are studying the Romans this term. I have had a couple of visits from metal detectorists to hand in their recent finds. We’ve had a couple of donations, and our first researcher in quite a while visited us yesterday to look at the Gallovidian Annuals. They all had appointments, wore masks, and in some cases gloves. All objects that are coming into our buildings, or reference material that has been looked at, is being set aside for a few days before we start to look at them or put them away. Hopefully we can continue to head in the right direction.

With very best wishes from Joanne.