Yesterday was my first day back in the archives. My phone was crawling with messages (an ongoing family situation). Then came a phone-call, which I couldn’t answer without running out to where I could talk. That led to another, and another. And another. Back and forth I went. I can’t tell you what a day it was!
However, I did get through several folders of Thomas Nelson papers. I’m in search of the first mention of a particular individual who was very influential in Nelson’s educational music output. I found him mentioned a couple of times in yesterday’s papers, once quite unexpectedly. I need to see how this sits in my timeline. Honestly, I didn’t expect to find him urging an organist’s wife to submit a book proposal on … elocution! It didn’t look like choral speaking (yes, that was a thing, which was quite in vogue a little later on). Indeed, a Nelson editor specifically advised his boss that it was about elocution, so I don’t need to wonder.
Nelson’s rejected the lady’s proposal. She found another publisher. I briefly wondered how the Englishman who basically ended up acting as music advisor to the Nelson editors, came to know a Scottish organist and his wife, quite early on in his professional career? But I think they probably met at a course or conference.
Karen McAulay, Musicologist 
Don’t underestimate the stress that was placed on elocution in the third quarter of the twentieth century in Scotland. Promoted by government education advisors, incorporated into competitive festivals and delivered through classes by the cooperative movement and others. I can see why a publisher would be interested.
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I’m not underestimating it – I didn’t really say that. But my research is into Nelson’s music-related publications, so although I do take note of elocution, choral speaking and so on, they’re not my prime focus.
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