Virtual ‘Storytellers’ Handling Box
Activate your imagination by using using objects from our Museum’s handling collection to create and share stories. Selected for their connections to the objects on display in the exhibition Storytellers, these objects can help spark a memory, create new connections or ignite a story! Read through why these objects were chosen, the stories already given to us at the Museum and how to share your own.
What is it? Replica White Feather Quills (HC/2019/54)
Why was this object chosen?
Feathers provided quills for writing until the invention of the steel pen point in 1822. Most of letters and manuscripts in the 17th century were written with a goose-quill pen and an iron gall or carbon-based ink.
How the idea was transformed?
The physician and author Joseph Warder Joseph would have used something very similar to write his notes on the habits of bees. In 1693 he encapsulated the results of many years of observation in a treatise entitled ‘The True Amazons, or the Monarchy of Bees’. The work went through nine editions, the last of which appeared in 1765.
What is it?
Motor Car Driving Licence - Croydon (HC/2018/2)
Why was this object chosen?
This driving licence was chosen in relation with Raymond Chandler’s crime novel The Big Sleep (1939), and its main character, detective Philip Marlowe.
How the idea was transformed?
In the 1946 film adaptation directed by Howard Hawks, the private detective is played by Humphrey Bogart.
Bogart is seen throughout the film driving a 38 Plymouth Deluxe Coupe and this driving licence from the 1930s could have been similar to that owned by the fictional detective.
What is it?
Lace Fingerless Gloves (HC/2000/35/3))
Why was this object chosen?
In Henry James’s Turn of the Screw the story of the children haunted by dead, corrupt servants, is recounted in the first person by the new governess.
How the idea was transformed?
I imagined the Victorian governess wearing these gloves together with a formal long, plain skirt and a blouse buttoned up to the neck, as this was the customary dress code from the 1880s.
What is it?
Ministry of Home Security Air Raids booklet (1940)
(HC/2019/41h)
Why was this object chosen?
In the Second World War, German bombers usually dropped a combination of high explosive and incendiary bombs. The people of Britain found their homes in the front line. But in Ronald Frederick Delderfield's The Avenue goes to War 1940-1947 life didn’t stop because the war had started.
How the idea was transformed?
The Avenue novels were based on Ronald Frederick Delderfield's life in Croydon. Booklets such as this were issued to all homes during WW2 to prepare the civilian population and help them to survive the raids.
I imagined the people of the Avenue being resilient in the face of adversity and confronting an uncertain future. .
What is it? Anti Catarrh smelling salts bottle (HC/1993/46). Mackenzie’s is a well known brand still active today and first recorded by advert in 1894.
Why was this object chosen?:
Smelling salts (preparations of ammonium carbonate and perfume) were sniffed as a restorative or stimulant. They were also said to ‘cure colds in the head’ and David Herbert Lawrence may have used them to relief his symptoms.
How the idea was transformed?
David Herbert Lawrence always suffered with his lungs and came down with a pneumonia in 1908. Nevertheless Tuberculosis (TB) was the illness of storytellers and in fact D. H. Lawrence died of consumption in 1930.
What is it?
A clay model of an ear. (on loan)
Why was this object chosen?
In Arthur Conan Doyle’s short story,
‘The Adventure of the Cardboard Box’ detective Sherlock Holmes investigates on the case of
a single middle-aged woman who receives a cardboard box in the mail containing two severed human ears. The grisly affair of “The Cardboard Box” began with the delivery of an innocent-looking package to a respectable lady in the town of Croydon - find out more on the Sherlock Holmes in Croydon blog.
How the idea was transformed?
Three clay models of an ear were loaned by
Roger Johnston and Jean Upton, who are deeply involved with the Sherlock Holmes Society of London.
Founded in 1951, the Society is open to anyone with an interest in Sherlock Holmes. Two ears are currently on display and the third was loaned for the ‘Storytellers’ handling box.
What is it? Folding Brownie Camera (HC/1998/3).
The Brownie were a series of simple and inexpensive cameras made by Eastman Kodak and invented by Frank A. Brownell.
Why was this object chosen?
Agatha Christie's 1935 thriller Death in the Clouds is set on a Croydon-bound flight from Paris.
By the 1930s, almost everyone owned a camera, and photography became a popular pastime, for those who could afford lots of film.
How the idea was transformed?
A folding camera like this would have been considered compact and helped to put photography into the hands of amateurs and allowed the middle class and luxury travellers to take their own "snapshots" as well..
What is it? Crochet Flower fairies by Jo Bodley
Why was this object chosen?
Cicely Mary Barker was born in West Croydon.
Her artistic abilities were recognised early and by age sixteen she became a life member of the Croydon Art Society, which made her the youngest-ever person to receive this honour.
Cicely created a postcard series featuring elves and fairies in 1918, and in 1923 sold images and verses to Blackie and Son, who published them as Flower Fairies of the Spring. The publication of Flower Fairies of the Summer two years later saw Cicely earning royalties for her work for the first time. Several more fairy books were to follow.
How the idea was transformed?
Jo Bodley made these finger puppets/dolls especially for the exhibition ‘Storytellers’.
Jo studied Fine Art at Hornsey Art School in London in the 1980s, She has always had an avid interest in knitting, crochet and recycling. Since 2013 she divides her time between writing patterns for Inside crochet magazine and iLikecrochet.
What is it?
A Victorian stoneware ink pot (HC/1995/13)
Why was this object chosen:
In the 19th century writing ink was commonly available commercially in liquid form and came in ceramic containers like this, which were corked, sealed with sealing wax, and costed a penny each. .
How the idea was transformed?
Arthur Conan Doyle would have filled or dipped his quill (or fountain pen) in one of these stoneware ink bottles. Or maybe he would have used them to refill a decorative inkwell made of glass.
What is it? Spectacle Box,
Frederick Bateman & Co. Ltd. Croydon
Why was this object chosen?
This postage box, made of cardboard and metal, contained pince-nez glasses, eyewear with a grip.
These glasses were popular at the beginning of the 20th century (especially in the 1920s), when the spring clip took a telescopic form, allowing the two lenses to be pulled apart horizontally.
Frederick Bateman was an eyesight specialist and sight testing optician.
His firm Frederick Bateman & Co. Ltd was active up until the beginning of the 1950s, when women’s glasses featured in 'Good Housekeeping', 'Woman's Illustrated' and ‘Vanity Fair’ magazines.
The shop in Croydon was at 36 George Street (now Amplifon).
How the idea was transformed?
Susan Elizabeth Perkins is an English comedian, broadcaster, actress, and writer.
She was born in Croydon in 1969 and was educated at Croham Hurst School.
‘Spectacles’, published in October 2015, is a hilarious, creative and incredibly moving memoir. Perkins invites her readers to discover the woman behind the spectacles.
Your stories…
Use our ‘virtual handling box’ to be inspired. Selected for their connections to the objects on display, these objects can help spark a memory, create new connections or ignite a story!
OR
Choose an object from your home and tell us its tale! We are all collectors of our own stories from photographs on the mantle piece, shells found on the beach to clothes handed down. Tell us your object inspired story!