Post-War shortages

I’ve had a run of things going wrong!

• Awaiting dishwasher parts for 2 months
• Needing a stonemason
• Storage heater malfunction
• MOT cancelled on April Fool’s Day; it really was …

I took myself off on a library visit, looking for a peaceful, fruitful day. (Yes, yes, I know – I’m a librarian, and I already work in a library 3.5 days a week. However, researching in a different library is an entirely different experience.)

It was peaceful, though I could have done without the six miles’ walking in the rain! But –

I found nothing related to my research question!

The trouble was, I had to read a lot of stuff, to eliminate it. Having researched music for so long, however, I was enchanted to read about paper pulp, factories, shipping and personnel in Nairobi, Cape Town, India, Toronto … yes, it was 1946-7, and the links were strong.

Then there were paper and bookbinding cloth shortages. Lots of allusions to both.

But was it a wasted journey? On the face of it, I made no progress, but – as you see – I gathered contextual information. From now on, I won’t be parroting those facts, but alluding to situations I’ve witnessed through perusal of correspondence.  That does count for something.  And I learned a handful of names that I might one day encounter in a musical context.

Oh, and apart from getting drookit  (drenched) and walking six miles (thanks, Fitbit), I did get my peaceful day in a library.