When we concentrate on an object whatever its situation, the very act of attention leads to our involuntarily sinking into the history of that object. . .such that we become ‘not of the now’.
Vladimir Nabokov
Here are two of the many objects that inspired us when we began developing the production:
Autograph Book
Gertrude Coggin’s Autograph Book
This album belonged to Gertrude Bessie Coggin (1879-1963), a music teacher who nursed patients at Beaucroft Red Cross Hospital during the First World War. Ms. Coggin remained in Wimborne all her life and never married.
Entries date from April 1911 to 1941 but the vast majority (circa 60) were inscribed by soldiers who were patients at Beaucroft Red Cross Hospital between 1914 and 1919. Some of the pencilled sketches and half-dozen small snapshots are a little faded but the inked entries are all fine.
Somehow the autograph album ended up in London (“Priest Marion Co. Ltd., 3 Farringdon Rd., Holborn LEC1” [written in biro on page one]), where it was purchased in the 1990s from a bookseller’s stall on Exmouth Market. It was then bought on the internet in 2015 by a Wimborne resident.
For which kind deed, and the
Former care, ‘merce’ he would say
Ere he packs his kit, for camp
Or billet, and travels on his way.
And when the accounts of ‘inasmuch’
Are being reckoned up.
I hope the name of Beacuroft
House will be somewhere near.241753
Pt G Robinson
1/8 Middlesex Regt
Letter from Bessie Angell to the War Office
Bessie Angell wrote this letter to the War Office after the death of her son, Harry:
Oct 8th 1916
Sir
In reply to your notice of this morning we are very please to know our Son was buried decent and in a Cemetery and we thank you very much for informing us about it we are deeply greaved at the lost of our son he is the second one we have lost with the 5th Dorset Regiment will you kindly forward us any thing that may be sent us soon as you can as we shall forget the quicker with many thanks we
Remain your’s respectfully
F & B Angell
View Page 1 of Bessie Angell’s original letter
View Page 2 of Bessie Angell’s original letter
