Archive in a Pandemic A-Z: R is for...

 RESTORATIVES

We are quite late with this installation of Archive In A Pandemic and it is probably because this stage of the pandemic has been exhausting us a little and we are still short staffed after the retirement of The Fonds.

We were in need of a restorative and found one in the archives today in the Watt of Breckness and Skaill collection. This document written on January 3rd 1737 is a letter from Thomas Baikie, Kirkwall to his son. He begins the letter with his sorrow that his son and wife have been ill and proceeds to share the recipe for a restorative 'if you be troubled with a cough and fear a decay'.

We could read most of the ingredients, but some of the words stumped us a little (highlighted below), so do please help us out if you can and then we can all brew up lovely restorative potions against cough and decay...

Orkney Archive Reference D3/386 - click to enlarge

To make the tincture, Thomas advised his son to take 'a chapin (about a half-pint) of brandy, 4 ounces of pepper, 1/2 ounce of  ___?____ , 1/2 ounce of cinamon, a handful of jags (thorns), a handful of the tops of spearmint, and a handful of the tops of wormwood.'

The method he gives is to 'braise the spices, cut the herbs, infuse them into the brandie, put into an earthen bottle, which will contain honie ____?______ 

This mixture was to be gently heated, 'till by the godes you bring it to a little boil',  left for 24 hours and then half a spoonful taken with milk in the morning or 3 or 4 drops in a dram of whisky.

You may find wormwood and earthen bottles hard to come by so we could conceivably replace the cinnamon and honey mixture with cinnamon buns and just have it with brandy or whisky. Can't hurt.

Orkney Olympics

We have prepared another display! It is, of course, in honour of the Olympics and contains many photos and documents of sporting prowess from rugged and/or lithe Orcadians.

The poster includes images of runners in the 2012 Torch parade which went through Orkney last month, Tom Wards, an Orcadian wrestler who competed at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, boxer Toby Cliff and a very brave man about to dive into the basin at Kirkwall harbour for a swimming gala.

We have censored this image with an iced bun as his swimming costume leaves little to the imagination. You'll have to come in and see the display if you want to ...errr... see the display.

We very much enjoyed the opening ceremony last night but were saddened by the lack of clootie dumplings, half time raffle and old men in boiler suits saying "aye aye min!" Blatant discrimination against Orkney.

Going... going...scone!

There has just been a booksale at Orkney Auction Mart and our assistant archivist has made her usual visit both to obtain new stock for the Archive and, more importantly, to wink at farmers over a mince roll in the cafe.

The bidding process is quite stressful and so she is always rolled and tied into an old duvet beforehand to soak up all the sweat and we tuck several twixes beneath the twine so that she can keep up her strength. This means that some chocolate always gets onto her David Dickinson-esque pin-striped suit but there's usually a bit of fake tan on there already. There is always quite a lot of competition over the best stuff and A.A. had to punch three other bidders to the ground, but we ended up with three boxes of haul.

 These include Stromness Shopping Week programmes, an admiralty map and this brilliant 1952 book of recipes which was made to raise money for the St Andrews Church repair fund:

Mmmmmmmmm oatmeal buns...

Recipes include those for various cakes, mmmmmm... cakes..., a fruity filling for pies, mmmmmm...pies..., Magic macaroons,Treacles Scones, Creamed Potatoes and Lemonade. It also contains a little rhyme telling how to brew the perfect cup of tea:

That Cup Of Tea.

Be sure to heat the earthen pot

And have your water boiling hot.

Put in a teaspoonful per cup

That each of you intend to sup.

Allow to stand for minutes four,

Then off the leaves be sure to pour.

When serving put the milk in first,

Add sugar and allay your thirst.

With this delightful, fragrant brew

You'll be refreshed and live anew.

There are also some useful household hints at the back as well as a pressed plant:

There is no indication as to the contributors of the recipes. Can anybody enlighten us?

Archive Stocktake Closure

The annual archive stock take is fast approaching, so don't get caught out! We shall be closed from Monday the 7th of March until Wednesday the 9th of March inclusive. The archive shall reopen on Thursday the 10th at the normal time of 9.15am.

There shall be no access to the search room and we shall not be taking telephone enquiries.

The Orkney Room shall be open however, so it will be possible to peer through the glass wall and see that we are not counting stock at all, simply eating buns and playing twister.

Library services will not be affected.