World Book Day

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
My two monographs, four contributed chapters, and a People's Friend paperback, on the dining room table, with a vase of daffodils.

Something you may not know is that my first book was by no stretch an academic one; it was actually a People’s Friend serial-turned-paperback, published in 1996.

And Her Family Never Knew

Fiction

Not many people know (there’s a theme here!) that I published 30 short stories and that serial, long before I made my second start at an academic career.  Writing helped finance my first maternity leave, and even enabled me to replace my car at the end of it. OK, it was a comparatively little-used Lada. But it had four gears compared to the previous Lada’s three, and more significantly, I’d earned it through writing. I was proud of that. I owe a big debt of gratitude to D. C. Thomson, who gave me these writing opportunities, and plenty of feedback along the way.

Writing Skills: Clarity

Our Ancient National Airs

I honed my writing skills. Clarity was one thing: a story must progress logically, and readability is crucial. I still try to avoid big words for big words’ sake, unless they are the obvious, unavoidable choice. 

And Writing about People

Writing about people was another skill, and I have continued to enjoy this in my subsequent work.  No, it’s more than enjoyable  – I love it! I’m never happier than when I’m writing about people whose lives I have researched; I feel as though I actually know them. Walking through Edinburgh, their ghosts surround me, and I’ve often reflected that I probably know as many deceased Edinburgh musicians and publishers as live ones!

I turned my PhD thesis (2009) into my first monograph (2013), then came a few contributed book chapters, amongst other writings:-

Book cover: A Social History of Amateur Music-Making and Scottish National Identity: Scotland's Printed Music, 1880-1951
A Social History of Amateur Music-Making and Scottish National Identity

My second monograph was published at the end of 2024.  Research has never occupied as much as half my working week, with the exception of last year’s IASH postdoctoral fellowship, so I have to resist making unfavourable comparisons with other full-time academics’ output; mine doesn’t compare.  But, taken in context, I can hold my head up pretty well.

But enough of celebrating my books for World Book Day – I need to get back to the research that will ultimately, I hope, give rise to my third monograph. I’m making up for lost time …

Book Stack

  • And Her Family Never Knew
  • Our Ancient National Airs: Scottish Song Collecting from the Enlightenment to the Romantic Era
  • ‘Wynds, Vennels and Dual Carriageways: the Changing Nature of Scottish Music’, in Understanding Scotland Musically
  • ‘National Airs in Georgian Libraries’, in Old Songs, New Discoveries: Selected Papers from the 2018 Folk Song Conference
  • ‘Alexander Campbell’s Song-Collecting Tour: ‘The Classic Ground of our Celtic Homer’, in Thirsty Work and other Legacies of Folk Song
  • ‘Strathspeys, Reels and Instrumental Airs: a National Product’, in Music by Subscription: Composers and their Networks in the British Music-Publishing Trade, 1676-1820
  • A Social History of Amateur Music-Making and Scottish National Identity: Scotland’s Printed Music, 1880-1951

Knowing When to Stop

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
The mystery teacher – photo from British Newspaper Archive

There are times when our insatiable curiosity leads us ‘up the garden path’, aren’t there? For me, it’s when I decide to pursue the life history of characters that really aren’t central to what I’m researching.

Take this weekend: I’m currently researching the pedagogical output of a Victorian Edinburgh music teacher, and I discovered his daughter collaborated on some of his publications. (This is confirmed by a letter that her sister wrote to a music journal later.) The collaborations appear to have been before she married.

I found a newspaper article about a story she had written for a women’s magazine called The People’s Friend in 1906, and this gave me her married name, but also informed me that she was working as a head teacher in a village quite a way from Edinburgh. It was definitely her – it named her father and his achievements.

Oh, my goodness. I wrote a number of stories for that magazine myself, some decades ago, so that made me sit up and look, straight away!

More interestingly, though – for a married woman still to be working, was a red flag in itself, because it was usual for a woman to stop working when she married. I traced her marriage certificate on Scotland’s People, and only noticed at the last minute that there was an amendment attached. She divorced her husband – whereabouts unknown – in 1912. Perhaps she had found it expedient to continue working, notwithstanding having a young child, if there had already been marital discord for a while. But who knows?!

I found the mother, a nine-year old son and a servant living back in Edinburgh in 1911. The census described her just as a teacher – no mention of headship here.

Really, my only interest at this point – whether or not she continued to collaborate with her father after she married – was my curiosity about a woman working as a teacher after marriage. Not long ago, I researched a late Victorian woman called Clarinda Webster, who was a music teacher, head teacher and ultimately a divorcee, so there was a human interest in finding someone else whose circumstances might have been vaguely similar …

After a few hours delving into Ancestry, Scotland’s People and the British Newspaper Archive, I made myself stop. I don’t know where this woman and her son ended up. Maybe they left Scotland or emigrated, who knows? At the end of the day, it doesn’t make any difference to my research into pedagogical music publications in the late Victorian and Edwardian eras.

On the other hand, stories of working women professionals in that era continue to interest me, whether musicians, teachers or both. It wouldn’t take much to convince me to keep looking…

ResearchFish

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

There comes a time in every funded researcher’s year, when they have to upload evidence of writings and speakings and anything else that may have emanated from their funded research.

Research Fish – as imagined

I struggled this month. There didn’t seem to be much to report, given that I’ve been focused largely on my present writing project, which is not (currently/yet, depending on optimism) funded. Nonetheless, I did it. And cheerfully tweeted my relief that it was done. I shared my favourite image of a fish mosaic on social media to celebrate.

Today, imagine my surprise – ResearchFish actually SENT me a Research Fish! I shall treasure this gesture.

Outreach and engagement

(On a slightly more serious note, this is possibly the first time an article in The People’s Friend has been cited as a research output – it counts as outreach!)