A Reward for Patience

My last two attempts to get to the Surrey History Centre in Woking were stymied by the fact that the heating there had broken down. I might be happy enough to sit in the cold in my William Hartnell fingerless gloves but I suppose it would be cruel to demand the staff turn up to supply me with documents. But I made it today.

My visits to record offices are another thing that's changed over the years. Once upon a time I would mainly be investigating maps looking for holy wells: I remember doing Leicestershire in the cramped old Leicester County Record Office and filling order slip after order slip which I placed into a little wooden tray in front of the member of staff on duty who sat on a high chair like a Victorian clerk. When I did the same for Surrey the number of documents I could order had gone down to three at a time and that was painfully slow. Now, at least, you can order up to ten documents in advance, and potentially call up more when you actually visit. It's the burden on the staff that has multiplied: documents aren't just handed over, they all seem to be signed in and out using multiple forms, and I noticed the archivist was weighing some folders of material before giving them to me, recording the weight of each one on the form. The only explanation was that it was to make sure I didn't pinch a leaflet for the St Augustine's Addlestone Garden Fete for 1963, and so it turned out. The poor staff must be nearly driven crazy.

This visit brought to light some interesting insights into the way St Augustine's Aldershot thought of itself; the interior arrangements and fixtures of the Addlestone churches; and some frankly disagreeable memories shared by a former pupil of the Song School of St Mary of the Angels ('I couldn't possibly have stood a second term under such a regime'). But I hadn't thought of the History Centre as a place to buy secondhand books. Yet I came away with three, and a map!