"Save your digital stuff!"

A blog post from Jenny Mitcham our Digital Archivist - written for International Digital Preservation Day

Most of us have a computer of some description (sometimes more than one!). Working with digital has become very much a part of our everyday life, but what do we do with the stuff that we create on the computer? How do we make sure that the important bits (those bits that we want to keep) are looked after for future generations?

Memories in the form of physical photographs have been handed down to children and grandchildren since the advent of photography, but now we create digital photographs (often with no intention of ever printing them out), how do we ensure they last as long as their analogue counterparts?

It is my job as a digital archivist to think about these sorts of things...but that doesn’t mean that everyone else shouldn’t be thinking about them too. The fragility of digital information should matter to all of us if we care about our personal and collective histories and the digital legacy that we want to leave behind.

Today is International Digital Preservation Day, a day that aims to: “create greater awareness of digital preservation that will translate into a wider understanding which permeates all aspects of society”

I think it is fair to say that many of us are better at looking after our physical things than our digital files. A couple of years ago I blogged about a personal example of this, discussing the different levels of care that even I apply to a physical photo book over the digital originals. Ironic really given my job description!

So today I’d like to talk about Personal Digital Archiving - not what I do in my job but what you can do to look after your digital stuff. 

What is a personal digital archive?

A personal digital archive doesn’t have to be anything formal or special, it doesn’t necessarily need to be visible or accessible to anyone other than you as the owner. It is your own collection of digital files that you have decided that you want to keep hold of, perhaps just for your own purposes or perhaps with the intention of handing them down to your children or grandchildren in the future.

Just like we may have kept physical photographs, film or audio recordings and correspondence in the past, now we keep digital photographs, digital video and audio and email.

But digital is by its very nature fragile. While we have the ability to keep many copies of the same thing we also have to guard against problems such as:

• Hardware obsolescence (will there be a computer that can read this disk in ten years time?) 
• Software obsolescence (will there be a programme that can open this file in ten years time?) 
• Hard drive failure (my computer has died and I’ve lost everything!) 
• Accidental damage (I’ve overwritten or deleted my files by mistake!) 
• Malicious damage (a computer virus has corrupted all of my files!)

I found some of my old data from the 1990's in a bedside drawer. Does anyone else still have data stored on floppy disks?

We should all be taking some small steps to actively manage our digital stuff. If you care about it, don’t leave its survival to chance.

How to manage a personal digital archive?

The good news is, there are many things we can do as individuals to manage our own personal digital archives. All it takes is a little bit of time and thought and potentially some financial investment in a good backup or storage solution.

File and directory naming

Descriptive file naming and the use of logical directory structures will help ensure that you can locate your files when you need them. This doesn’t actually take a lot of time when it is done at the point of creation. Unfortunately it does take much longer when you have to go back and make sense of many years of accumulated digital ‘stuff’...or worse still if someone else has to sort through your digital legacy in the future.

Gone (thankfully!) are the days when we only had 8 characters with which to create our file names (and 3 additional characters with which to record the file extension). Back in the 1980’s and early 1990’s there was good reason why our filenames were cryptic, but today there is no excuse for not naming files in a descriptive and logical manner.

Happiness for me is knowing what a file is when I double click on it to open it up. This is such a basic thing but makes a real difference when you are trying to locate something. Having to open up lots of files in order to find the one you want is not only frustrating, but so easily avoidable.

Weeding and deleting

Storage is relatively inexpensive and this means it is all too easy to just keep things for the sake of it. If you keep everything you’ve ever created this will make it harder to find the really valuable things in the future. It is worth periodically checking over your digital files and weeding out those things that do not have longer term value and do not need to be kept. 

Storage and backing up

A reliable digital storage solution is key to managing your digital files. There are no hard and fast rules as to which type of storage is best but I have a few tips.

It is difficult to manage data that is scattered over numerous types of portable media. Portable media certainly has its fair share of problems. We were once told that CDs were indestructible but this is clearly not the case! USB sticks are handy to have but are also incredibly easy to lose. Other portable media types such as floppy disks are now obsolete - when did you last see a PC with a floppy disk drive? It is better to gather your digital files in one place where there is adequate space - your PC hard drive, a portable hard drive or a cloud service for example.

You should implement regular backups. It is very risky to have only one copy of the files that are important to you as they could easily get damaged, corrupted or stolen. You should ensure that files are backed up and stored elsewhere. Think about what would happen to your data if there was a fire, flood or break in at your home or office (note I had to think about just this a couple of years ago).

Make sure that you have other copies of your data elsewhere that you can access if you need to. You could use a cloud service provider for example or store a portable hard drive containing a copy of your files in a different location.

Whatever you choose to do, try not to make it too complex and if you can make use of an automated backup service, this can often be more robust and reliable than remembering to do it yourself!

Where do I find out more?

This post has only really touched on the very basics of managing your personal digital archives but there are so many great resources available on this topic if you want to explore this in more depth.

Firstly we have some good practice guidance on the Borthwick website for those people and organisations who are creating digital files - Managing your digital material: some good practice guidelines for donors and depositors. It was originally aimed at those who are intending on donating or depositing their material to an archive but the advice is applicable to anyone working with digital files.

Preserving your digital memories by The Library of Congress is a really helpful and easy to follow brochure. It gives tips on how to preserve some of the most common elements of a personal digital archive: Digital Photographs, Digital Audio, Digital Video, Electronic Mail, Personal Digital Records and Websites. It is really quick and easy to read with one side of key tips and pointers for each of these media types. Well worth a look.

Guidelines for creators of personal archives from the Paradigm project is a useful resource if you want to know more about file naming, documentation, file formats and backing up. From the same project, 11 top tips for preserving your personal data is a great quick reference guide to what you can do to manage your files and when you should do it.

Perspectives on Personal Digital Archiving is an fascinating and eclectic selection of blog posts from the Library of Congress relating to personal digital archiving, brought together into one publication. It includes ‘Four easy tips for preserving your digital photographs’ and an interesting piece called ‘Remember when we had photographs?’. In a call to action entitled ‘Forestalling personal digital doom’ the author states “Like organizing a closet, or rearranging a kitchen cabinet, personal digital archiving is easy to put off, easy to forget and easy to make excuses for avoiding.” Hopefully after browsing this selection of short essays you will be encouraged to tackle it head on!

Born Digital: Guidance for Donors, Dealers, and Archival Repositories by the Council on Library and Information Resources is well worth a read if you are planning to offer your digital files to an archival institution or repository. It is aimed at both donors and repository staff and perhaps of particular interest in this context is appendix D which is a checklist of recommendations for donors and dealers.

Feeling inspired?

If this post has inspired you to do something to protect your digital legacy today, we’d love to hear about it! Add a comment to this post or Tweet to @UoYBorthwick with the #IDPD17 hashtag to tell us what you’ve done.

Professional Perspectives: Ethics in Conservation and Archives

In August 2015 three members of Borthwick staff travelled across land and sea to present papers at the annual Archives and Records Association conference in Dublin. The theme of the conference was 'Challenges, Obligations, or Imperatives? The moral and legal role of the Record Keeper today'. The three sessions that our staff presented demonstrate a range of ethical concerns that exist within the worlds of archives and conservation, but also offer a glimpse into the inner workings of these two relatively little-known professions.

Screen shot from Tracy’s presentation ‘Why do you do what you do to me? 

Conservation Prioritisation and Collaboration in the Digitisation of the Retreat Archive’.

For more information on the project visit: www.york.ac.uk/borthwick/projects/retreat/

Tracy Wilcockson was the opening speaker for the conservation strand on the second day of the conference with her presentation ‘Why do you do what you do to me? Conservation Prioritisation and Collaboration in the Digitisation of the Retreat Archive’. Tracy’s talk addressed her role in preparing material for the digitisation of the Retreat archive, which is a part of the wider ‘The Asylum and Beyond’ project funded by the Wellcome Trust. The depth and breadth of Tracy’s knowledge of conservation theory and practice enabled her to discuss the nature of digitisation as ethically problematic, while still clearly explaining the practical implications and processes that have affected the digitisation of the Retreat Archive. I was particularly struck by the application of digitisation to the ‘balance triangle’ that she described from Chris Caple’s book ‘Conservation Skills’, which demonstrates how every conservation process can be expressed by a balance between preservation, investigation and revelation. The talk also highlighted several examples of collaborative responses to digitisation problems between the Conservation and Digitisation teams, such as the use of light boxes for the image capture of receipts, so that they do not need to undergo the time-consuming process of removal from the documents that they are attached to.

Tracy’s talk was very well received, and generated a number of enthusiastic and complimentary tweets from listeners. The presentation has also resulted in some excellent contacts with a number of other organisations running digitisation projects, and the potential for further collaboration. Colleagues are interested in further information regarding how the Borthwick project has been managed, equipment and techniques that have been used, problems that have arisen and how they have been overcome. It will be exciting to see where this goes next.

My presentation ‘The Archbishops’ Registers of York: A case study of ethical dilemmas in conservation and digitisation’ was directly after Tracy’s, and also used a digitisation project as a case study, this time to study the role of the conservator as an arbitrator of ethical problem-solving and decision-making. One of the points I addressed was the tension that can exist between the available research into materials (which may recommend against certain treatments) and the need to access or digitise an archive (which may need treatment to enable access).

As an example I talked about the ethics of removing creases from parchment using solvents. Although I only had time to briefly outline the technique I finally used in the project, I had set up a demonstration volume for the delegates in the adjoining room, along with a selection of magnets and magnetic material to try. In the coffee-break after the first session I chatted with a stream of

Working with magnets on the ‘York’s Archbishops’ Registers Revealed’ project. 

For more information visit: www.york.ac.uk/borthwick/projects/archbishops-registers/

colleagues, discussing the materials and the technique, as well as other applications. The magnets generated a flurry of discussion comparing the many different ways that they are currently being used in conservation workshops around the country: in exhibitions and displays; for restraint of parchment during treatment; wrapped in blotters for restraint and drying of local repairs; for construction of boxes and book rests; and one enterprising department are using them as very effective darts… I was pleased that a presentation that had aimed to highlight the importance of communication and collaboration had generated so much productive discussion.

After lunch the conservation, digital preservation and archive strands merged into a hot-pot of workshops, panels and break-out sessions. Gary Brannan, our Access Archivist, was running a workshop entitled ‘From Filth to the Future: Reviewing the ARA training offer’. The session was based heavily upon the ARA Northern Region’s 2013 Filth conference, and was designed to get delegates thinking about the role that ARA could - and perhaps, maybe even should - have in supporting members dealing with difficult, disturbing and legally dubious collections.

Flying home after a productive and inspiring day.

The exercises were based on real experiences sent in by ARA members and featured issues including I still sometimes find myself picturing the photograph from a Coroner’s notebook showing the image of a man who had been murdered by having his head nailed to a tree and Male reader requesting (repeatedly) access to 1950s photographs of schoolgirls in gym clothes. Delegates were asked to sort the issues provided into those which they felt they needed emotional support to deal with, and those which may be helped by practical advice and training. Some of the results were surprising - for instance, much unease at processing and making available content that may upset third parties, and a desire for training in dealing with requests from customers for embarrassing (but not legally exempt) data. However, the greatest need came in the desire for both training and support in dealing with content and imagery related to death and inquests.

Gary’s session received considerable interest and encouragement from delegates, and provided a supportive outlet for frank discussions in a profession whose members often work in small teams or in isolation. The subject matter and style of delivery really embodied the theme and aims of the conference as a whole: addressing relevant issues amongst our peers, sharing experiences and exploring practical solutions. Talking to Tracy and Gary on our journey home I was struck by how much we had taken away from the conference – new ideas and perspectives, new contacts – and for myself a renewed motivation for the job that I do and respect for the colleagues that I work alongside, both within the Borthwick and without. The overlapping worlds of archives and conservation might not be very well known – but they are passionately appreciated by those that know them well.

Catherine Dand, Conservator.

The York Lunatic Asylum Scandal

The York Lunatic Asylum opened in 1777, at a time when little was understood about mental illness. Without organised institutional care available, families were left to deal with the mentally ill at home as well as they could. It was usual to chain lunatics to the walls and to leave them naked (it was not thought possible for mentally ill people to feel cold) and alone. Madness turned people into animals.

                                                

Although there were grand ideals when it was first conceived of providing 'relief to those unhappy sufferers who are the objects of terror and compassion to all around them', York Lunatic Asylum soon fell onto a darker path. In 1790 a Quaker woman called Hannah Mills died at the York Asylum. No Friends had been allowed to see her during her six-week residence, to support her faith or to see the conditions in which she was being held. This led William Tuke to encourage the foundation of the Retreat in York, an institution built upon the Quaker idea that everyone should be treated kindly, and as an equal.

William Tuke (1732-1822)

Concerns about the York Asylum continued to grow. After William Vickers was badly treated by the staff at the asylum, a Justice of the Peace for the West Riding called Godfrey Higgins interested himself in the case. Vickers had been released from the hospital bruised, lousy, dirty and so weak he could hardly stand. Other poorly-treated patients were discovered: Reverend Schorey who had been kicked down the stairs by his keeper, and Martha Kidd whose hip was dislocated during her stay. A meeting was called to examine Higgins' accusations and nearly 40 local gentlemen (including members of the Tuke family and a number of their friends) took advantage of an old rule and paid £20 in order to qualify as governors of the asylum and effect change.

Investigations discovered that the number of patients at the Asylum had been growing, but poor financial management meant that the institution was struggling and conditions for the patients were poor. This should have caused a higher death rate but the figures published in the Asylum's annual reports did not reflect this. Closer examination of the steward's books made it clear that deaths had been concealed. In addition, it was discovered that the physicians at the Asylum had misappropriated significant sums of money from the institution. Before further assessments could be made, a fire began which destroyed one wing of the asylum and all of its early records. Four patients died. Rumours said it had been set by the steward deliberately to conceal the truth but this was never proven. Dr Best was never charged for his fraud but was forced to resign due to ill health.

 

Affluent patients at the Asylum were generally well treated. It was the poor who suffered. On a surprise inspection in March 1814, Godfrey Higgins insisted that the staff opened locked doors near the kitchen. When the key could not be found he threatened to break open the doors with a poker. Finally he gained entrance and found 'a number of secret cells in a state of filth, horrible beyond description', full of female patients, 'the most miserable objects I ever beheld'. Elsewhere, 'you might see more than 100 poor creatures shut up together, unattended and uninspected by anyone'.

 In August 1814 at the governors' annual court, new rules were made and the officers of the asylum were all dismissed. The staff were replaced with help from the Retreat Hospital.

In the aftermath, there was a full parliamentary enquiry to which Godfrey Higgins, Samuel Tuke and others contributed. The report was published in 1815 and can be read for free via GoogleBooks. 

Alexandra Medcalf, Archives Assistant

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You can read more about the Retreat here and more about the Tuke family here here and here

Dishing the Dirt on the Atkinson Brierley Conservation Project

Drawing for Middlesborough War Memorial Gates at Albert Park from the Atkinson Brierley collection

Archivists might baulk at the old stereotype of the ‘dusty archive’, but it is an image that rings true
for some of the items in the Atkinson Brierley collection. When the collection was assessed in 2011/
2012 of the 6414 architectural plans there were only 99 that did not require cleaning. This is where
we volunteers come in. Thanks to generous funding from the Shepherd Charitable Trust, we meet
every Wednesday morning under the supervision of the Borthwick’s conservation technician, Tracy.
There are four regular members of our team – our longstanding volunteers, Catherine and Dave, and
more recent (August 2013) arrivals, Kate and myself. We also occasionally have additional students
or volunteers who want to find out more about conservation. At the start of the project we received
training in handling the plans and in careful cleaning with special brushes and smoke sponges, and
since then we have cleaned architectural plans of all shapes and sizes and in various degrees of
disrepair. We get through about 1.5 smoke sponges per two-hour session and, as of June 2014, have
now cleaned 25% of the plans identified for attention.

A dirty plan from the collection

It might seem like a fairly mundane task, but cleaning the plans is a really important part of ensuring the Atkinson Brierley collection remains accessible to the public. Even when the plans don’t look particularly dirty, they can carry ingrained dust and grime which then rubs off on archive user’s hands and can be transferred onto other documents. Over time, the dirt will cause the document to deteriorate, so it’s really important that we clean as many of the plans as possible. Doing so means that people can continue to visit the Borthwick and use this fascinating collection, which includes plans of many of the public buildings in and around York, providing a wonderful source for localand family historians as well as those interested in architectural history from the Georgian period onwards. The collection includes documents as well as plans, and covers schools, churches, war memorials and country houses, not only in Yorkshire but as far afield as Ypres in Belgium.

Our volunteers hard at work!

As for us, the volunteers, we’ve gained a vital insight into what goes on behind the scenes in an archive. Every week, we handle a number of interesting documents and learn more about howthey are cared for. We’ve also had talks on more intensive conservation procedures from the team, and learned about a digitisation project which used some of the plans we had cleaned to create an exhibition about the war memorials designed by the architectural firm. Last but not least, there is always good conversation during our sessions, and even occasionally cake and a coffee once the plans are safely back in storage! Our current list of plans to clean stands at 4618 documents, and we are hoping to secure funding to continue with the project after our current grant expires in October. The best thing about working on the project is the sense of helping to preserve a collection so that it can continue to be enjoyed for a long time to come, and possibly be digitised for even wider use.




We’d love to hear from others who’ve used the collection – what do you love about the plans and why?

Ruth Mather, Volunteer, Atkinson Brierley Conservation Project

Keeping Pace: Dr Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Archive

In your day-to-day life you've probably walked past one of George Pace's buildings before and not realised it. Pace (1915-1975) was a York-based architect who is famous for his contributions to modernist ecclesiastical architecture. Perhaps his strict religious upbringing was the reason behind his career. Upon the death of his associate, Ronald Sims, the Pace and Sims documentation was gifted to the Borthwick. Today, more than 250 rolls of plans, drawings and correspondence lie uncatalogued in storage: it was our job to begin this exciting quest.

As work experience students from the University of York - under the guidance of Dr. Amanda Jones - we immediately got our teeth stuck in (not literally!). Armagh Cathedral was the first building we unrolled. Seventy-seven architectural drawings took us on a virtual tour of the Royal Irish Fusiliers Chapel. The Dean of York personally recommended Pace for this project; this is the foundation of Pace's illustrious career. Some of the most interesting drawings from this roll related to the war memorial design. We saw many designed for such memorials; it served as a powerful and poignant reminder of the lasting impact of the World Wars.

Another part of our project was to help conserve some of the Atkinson Brierley archives. This involved cleaning the documents using specialised tools. Alex was swept away by, "the cleaning experience. I couldn't believe the amount of dirt that has accumulated on the sdocuments!" Through this, we learnt how important conservation is for the preservation of these valuable documents. We enjoyed working with the conservation staff and current volunteers and through their help and knowledge, we gained a new set of skills in basic conservation.

This was Guy's favourite part," I am currently working on a Masters dissertation on Brierley so the chance to contribute to the preservation of these wonderful documents was really rather special."

In three days, we managed to catalogue 347 documents. This process was one in which the past was unrolled before our very eyes. From memorials to dossals, radiator covers to electrical installations, and candlesticks to altars, we saw the extensive work and skill behind being an architect. Joy particular enjoyed the data collecting. "It is wonderful to think that my work is contributing to the preservation of 'the past in the present for the future'. Through the database, these documents can now be brought to light again and truly appreciated."

"I built on my communication and team skills through the data inputting. Also, the project gave me the chance to further my palaeographical skills. This week has been really fun and insightful." Caitlin.

"Analysing the documents was very interesting. I normally study 19th century architecture, so getting the chance to see 20th century work was fascinating." Rebecca.

This is how Joy rolls.

What made the experience truly worthwhile is the fact we have made a lasting contribution to the archives. Before we began this placement, we did not truly appreciate the important work of archivists and the volume of information stored. A career in archives is one that should be respected as archivists are making a remarkable effort to preserve our heritage. In fact, we are all interested in pursuing a job in this field. Aoife found that, "all the staff were friendly and helpful, and their career advice was really useful."

For read about the work of former work experience students, look at the posts on the Tuke project last year, here, here and here. 

"A fun and fascinating week with a great group of people." Mark

 

 

The Borthwick at 60! Our anniversary exhibition

In May 2013 we put up a small ‘taster’ exhibition, marking the 60th anniversary of the Borthwick. Now we have just opened a larger exhibition which reflects on the story of the founding of the Borthwick, explores its early days, and looks at aspects of our development, past and present. The exhibition is in the Storey Exhibition Gallery, top floor, Borthwick Institute. It runs from 1 November 2013 to 31 January 2014.

Norah Gurney

The exhibition poster includes this splendid picture, taken in 1957, of Mrs Norah Gurney. She had arrived the previous year, as assistant archivist - the first such appointment. She is pictured in one of the original Borthwick strongrooms at St Anthony’s Hall, taking a probate act book down from the shelf. The detail in the photograph is superb. It really evokes, for those of us who remember St Anthony’s Hall, the atmosphere of the strongrooms – dark and cramped, with mezzanine floors above, all racked out with rather oppressive dark green metal shelving (state of the art in the 1950s). Things hadn’t changed much between 1957 and when we left in 2004!

Norah Gurney later became the second Director of the Institute, taking over after the retirement of Canon Purvis in 1963. Tragically she died of cancer aged only 52, in 1974. There have been in total four Borthwick Directors (although the title is now Keeper of Archives). It is notable how much continuity we have had between 1953 and today – all our ‘bosses’ served first under their predecessors – this is true of our conservators too.

The exhibition reflects on development and change. Although the past couple of decades – and particularly after our move in 2005 – have seen great changes, there is an obvious continuity in our remit and in what we still think is important.

Searchroom Office, 1953

This photo, of the searchroom office, ready for business in 1953, shows, for example, how some things have physically altered. But other things continue: the importance of teaching and research can be traced back to our original purpose, and so can our role in what we now call ‘outreach’.

Canon Purvis with Summer School students

Here is Canon Purvis with students at an early ‘summer school for archives’. Teaching with documents is still central to our work, but handling techniques have certainly changed for the better! 

The exhibition traces how distinguished academics quickly arrived in the early days (the first visitors’ book is on display), and yet the first name recorded in the visitors book – and very regularly thereafter - is that of “Mrs T” (as we called her), a professional genealogist and a good friend to the Borthwick, regarded with much affection by staff. The exhibition has some photos of her 80th birthday party at the Borthwick. 

We have had quite a low key 60th birthday (though we had cake to celebrate the anniversary of our opening day!) and this is partly because we had big celebrations when we were 50, ten years ago, but also because this year there has been a bigger celebration to mark the 50th birthday of the University, and of course the Borthwick is part of that.

We have been here on campus for eight years now, and only a few of the staff now remember St Anthony’s Hall.

Moving from St Anthony's Hall, 2004

Here we are moving from St Anthony’s in 2004 – archives are being taken off the green metal shelves (how different from the new electronic mobile shelving!). It was a well-planned six month operation.

The Borthwick during construction

And here is the new Borthwick half built. You can see here the massive concrete shell of the strongroom block, on the right. We had 10 strongrooms in the old building, but these came in all shapes (usually small) and all sizes (usually inconvenient). The other day, three of us who remembered St Anthony’s Hall found ourselves perplexed in trying to remember where they all were – they were scattered all over the St Anthony’s Hall complex (as were the offices). We found there was even one strongroom (one of the less frequented ones) that we had quite forgotten!

 

Two of us have memories of the Borthwick going back to 1980, and so in effect remember nearly half of its lifespan. On the one hand it has been a bit nostalgic to remember the past, but on the other it serves to show how important it is to try and record, and carefully consider, our history. The Borthwick really does have origins unique among archive offices.

 

I hope as many as possible will come and see the exhibition. Find out why we are called “Borthwick” (it has to do with William Borthwick of Bridlington, but in fact he wasn’t personally involved at all!), why we changed our name in 2005 (have people noticed?) and why our logo is a pig (clue – it is the connection with St Anthony’s Hall). There are individual exhibition cases about the Borthwick’s founding, about Canon Purvis our first Director, about St Anthony’s Hall and why we had to move from there, about the Borthwick in the early days, about conservation past and present, and about our activities over the years. 

And if you are interested in learning more about the Borthwick’s origins in relation to the founding of the University of York, come along to the 50th Anniversary Public Lecture at 6pm, Bowland Auditorium, Berrick Saul Building, on 18 November. The lecture is: “In York the opportunity waits, and all historybeckons”: the story behind the founding of the University, 1946-1963.

Katherine Webb

 

Answering Critics with Laughter, Shakespeare and Toilet Paper: The Comedy of Alan Ayckbourn

In a preface to his 'Norman Conquests' Alan Ayckbourn writes that

"Few women care to be laughed at and men not at all, except for large sums of money".

This seems somewhat appropriate from one of the most successful and prolific playwrights ever to emerge from these shores. Ayckbourn's work has been engaging audiences with biting wit, flourishes of comic genius and well-tuned subtleties of pathos for over half a century and now the Borthwick Institute for Archives in York has been given the opportunity to delve into drafts, letters and scripts of a writer largely considered a national treasure.



Photograph copyright of Scarborough Theatre Trust/Stephen Joseph Theatre

Throughout an extensive career, it is perhaps Ayckbourn’s masterful use of comedy to illustrate what can sometimes be the ugly truth that has and will continue to immortalize him. For a playwright who walks the thin line between comedy and tragedy, often moving his audience to tears of laughter and sorrow in one sitting, the boundary between the two genres is often blurred. As one admirer put it, Ayckbourn’s writing is “a superbly funny and devastating commentary on corruption”.  This week, I have been looking though the many letters sent to Alan Ayckbourn by audience members who have come away from his theatre with an all-consuming discomfort that comes with the knowledge that everything you thought you knew has been challenged. Or, after an Ayckbourn play, ripped from your cradling arms with all the brutality of a powerful genius. And yet, in amongst countless letters of complaint and reproach, Ayckbourn fervently defends his artistic choices. 

“The balancing act is to say things that need saying without emptying the stalls. Tricky….My real fascination is in seeing just how much one can say through comedy. And sorry, yes, I also enjoy making people laugh….In this country, if we see pain coming, we close our eyes. Comedy is the Optrex of the mass

(Taken from a letter in reply to a complaint from a member of the audience of ‘A Small Family Business’. Dated August 1987)

It is in this vein that Ayckbourn answers his critics; with a careful balance of truthful response, seasoned with a (sometimes painful) pinch of wit. Although the majority of letters from his audience in this archive are overwhelmingly positive, Ayckbourn answers them all with the patience and grace of someone who truly understands and cultivates the relationship between playwright and spectator. With complaints ranging from the volume of the music, the acoustics of the theatre and the occasional expletive, Ayckbourn’s work never fails to come under scrutiny. One attentive member of the audience even wrote to Ayckbourn to inform him that the set designer had put the toilet roll on the wrong way around in the bathroom set.

But, it is precisely this wish to interact with and the boundless enthusiasm for Alan Ayckbourn’s work that has meant his enduring popularity. The audience feels it can write to this playwright of such repute and tell him their grievances because more often than not, they will receive a reply; albeit humorous, instructive and sometimes firm. Ayckbourn is a playwright willing to answer to his critics, but always ready to defend his craft. On receipt of a letter from a theatregoer complaining that they could only bear to stay for the first half of his play ‘A Small Family Business’, Ayckbourn replied by imagining the reaction of audience being subjected to one half of a Shakespeare play: “Just saw the second half of your play Hamlet. Really, Mr S, all those bodies…"

This post was written by Maddy Pelling, Ayckbourn Intern.

Read more about Maddy's work in her post Archiving Ayckbourn.

Archiving the Life and Works of Alan Ayckbourn

Photograph copyright of Scarborough Theatre 
Trust/Stephen Joseph Theatre

For two years now, the Borthwick Institute for Archives has been holding the library of Alan Ayckbourn. As the author of over seventy plays, Ayckbourn is one of Britain’s most successful and prolific playwrights. But, whilst Ayckbourn is primarily a writer, he is also known for his work as an educator, a businessman and for many in the arts, as a friend. Over the next eight weeks, we will be delving into personal correspondence, drafted plays and interview transcripts in order to better understand this colossus of the theatre. And indeed, in amongst the audition notes, scribbled stage directions and countless fan letters, we have already begun unearthing surprises that have started to sketch the outline of the life and works on Alan Ayckbourn.

Ayckbourn’s first play ‘The Square Cat’ premiered in 1959 and was followed by over half a century of work during a long and exciting career. A notoriously busy man, Ayckbourn has spent the last fifty years of his professional life dividing his time between the bright lights of London’s West End and the sea-mist drenched cobbles of Scarborough, where he held the position of artistic director at the Stephen Joseph Theatre. But far from epitomising the lonely lot of a playwright, shut up in isolation and feverishly scribbling away, Ayckbourn has proven himself a writer of the people. Within his seventy-something plays there inhabit the voices of countless characters; ink and paper creations that, sharpened with the biting wit of a playwright unafraid to look beneath the covers, have continuously taught their audiences undeniable truth about themselves. Be it negotiating the delicate power balance of marriage, or navigating the comic intricacies of farce, his work has continually reached high acclaim and is not devoid of even the most challenging material. Alan Ayckbourn’s work will often give the members of its audience a slap around the face that will draw laughter and tears in one sitting and inevitably send the tingle of uncomfortable familiarity down their collective spine. 

 For the Borthwick, perhaps the most exciting aspect of archiving the writing of Alan Ayckbourn is that he is still living and writing. With his latest play premiering in Scarborough next month, Ayckbourn’s vast career is a testament to the growth and development of his own writing craft. Over fifty years in theatre has produced creative partnerships with colleagues such as Andrew Lloyd Webber, Michael Gambon and Prunella Scales, to name but a few. Ayckbourn’s work also extends to the support of children’s theatre, with the playwright linked to youth groups and having written several plays aimed at an underage audience. With an archive as rich in social and contextual history as it is in professional insight, the works of Alan Ayckbourn are already highlighting new and exciting stories from one of Britain’s most revered writers.

 This post was written by Maddy Pelling, Ayckbourn Intern. 

You can read more about Maddy's work with Alan Ayckbourn's archive in her post Answering the Critics with Laughter, Shakespeare and Toilet Paper: The Comedy of Alan Ayckbourn.