Last night
I dreamt I went to Manderley again … Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Actually,
it was the rooms of the Mechanics’ Institute Trust once based at No 1, Milton
Road, Swindon, where Mark Sutton, Graham Carter and I first produced the blue
print for the Swindon Heritage magazine in 2011.
In my dream
I was attending a shambolic meeting that roamed across the spacious office accommodation.
There I met some of the key characters of this story, although not all of them.
Paul Gregory, or was it Noel Beauchamp, it could have been either, Julie Carter
and a hot dog vendor (so vivid was the illusion that when I awoke, I had the
taste of onions in my mouth).
Then there
was an on-going, ambulatory talk about saving the Mechanics’ Institute
reminiscent of the famous ‘Save the Clock Tower’ scene in the 80s film Back to
the Future.
This
account is rather rambling, isn’t it, but isn’t that the nature of a dream –
making perfect sense when you are in it and none at all when you wake up?
Swindon
Heritage began with a dream. Not mine, but that of Mark Sutton. Mark was a
local historian with a passion for Swindon and in particular that of the period
of the Great War. Mark had researched every battle of that war in which Swindon
men served, died or miraculously survived and came home. He gave sell out talks
at local venues and undertook research for families tracing their military
ancestors, conducting tours of the battlefields in France.
He had
already written and published a book, ‘Tell Them of Us’ but he wanted to do
more. Swindon Heritage magazine was his dream.
We were
both members of the Swindon & District History Network, established and
hosted by Local Studies in Swindon Central Library. At one of the meetings Mark
floated the idea of a local history magazine. He had organised and paid for a
dummy edition containing a couple of articles written by both of us and he spoke
to a friendly audience of local history enthusiasts. Perhaps we were naïve, but
Mark’s dream of a community-based magazine project was poorly received. The
senior archivist from the Wiltshire & Swindon History Centre in Chippenham
was the most damning, shooting the idea down in flames. To say we were
disappointed would be an understatement.
We quickly
realised we needed professional help, so who did we call (no, not
Ghostbusters), but Graham Carter, Swindon Advertiser journalist, and as it
turned out, a gifted print designer.
Was he
enthusiastic? Perhaps he had some inkling of just how much work it would
involve, for him in particular, so much of it public facing, which is not his
style. Mark was working as a self-employed painter and decorator with great
demands on his time. My skills set certainly didn’t include the myriad of other
tasks that came with producing a magazine.
So,
somewhat cautiously, Graham joined us. The success of the Swindon Heritage
magazine was largely down to him.
But to get
back to this dream starring a hot dog vendor and the late appearance of my
neighbour who delivered a bag of wet washing I’d left at her house.
Of course,
dreams never make much sense, neither do they come true, but the Swindon
Heritage magazine one did!
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