If one
wants to get a sense of, to get a feel for 'remembrance,' that
quality referred to in architectural theory as suits the moods, ideas
and fashions of our era, c.f. Body, Memory and Architecture by
Kent C. Bloomer and Charles W. Moore, Yale University Press, 1978,
and Memory Without Monuments: Vernacular Architecture by
Stanford Anderson, TDSR Volume XI, Number 1, 1999, then one should
read the remarkable book that the Scottish history group identifies
as 'rare.' It may be 'rare' physically in the sense of being
'scarce,' and valued because of this, but the book is uniquely
special in defining the impact and experience of war for all to see,
understand and feel on an intimate, a personal basis. The question
is: if this is remembrance, how might it inform architecture?
In the
traditional context, remembrance is more anchored, more precisely
defined, and more critical of our era because of this certain sense
of identity. Remembrance is the kernel, the centre of concepts; the
remembering of origins: the story of being. Remembrance is seen as
the core essence of art that was never merely self-expression, the
work of an inspired genius, or just different, quirky things 'of
interest.' All art held remembrance at its nucleus; it was what art did.
Beauty had rules and distinct ambitions; it was never merely a random
or ad hoc aesthetic possibility or personal whim.
The
advertisement in The Shetland Times gave the place, date and
time of the house clearance. In true Shetland style there was no
indication of any precise location other than a crossroad near a
ferry terminal. On arrival, we parked and started to walk, looking
for clues. Soon others were also seen walking around in the vicinity
trying to guess which house it might be. The only definite detail was
the date and the time, but the time had already elapsed. There was
nothing that gave even the slightest hint of the location. All was
quiet. Eventually the place was revealed, identified by a neighbour
answering a knock on the door. It was the first house passed. One
says 'true Shetland style' because homes in Shetland are like this –
bland, looking almost derelict, anonymous outside, but rich and vital
inside - see: http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2013/12/shetland-vernacular-buildings.html This place was no exception.
After
looking through the living/dining room and detouring around the
kitchen and bathroom into the bed room, the loop was completed. It
was a small house. The ceilings must have been about 2100 high. It
was cosy. A small shelving unit looked interesting, but one soon
realised that it was too wide for the door we wanted it to go
through. Back in the living/dining room lying on the sideboard under
a collection of sundry items - picture frames, place mats and
magazines - a very tatty book was noticed. Items like this always
need to be investigated just to see what the 'mess' is. Catch 22
said that some folk know how to manage a mess, viz. artists. The blue
cloth cover was splotchy, shabby and baggy. The spine was tattered
and torn in the most extreme form of this cloth-covered cliché. The
title was illegible. The pages were a frill of loose leaves, curled,
misaligned, torn and worn. The book looked like a loss, less. On
carefully lifting the layered clutter free from its encumbrances, the
full sorry mess was revealed. It was a hopeless case ready to be
dumped, discarded, of no use at all. What could this shambles of an
assemblage be but trash? Who would ever be interested in purchasing
this disordered collection? The book, well, the shuffled clutter of
covers and leaves, was opened cautiously. One did not want to be
embarrassed by dropping a confetti of pages everywhere across the
floor. The sundry sheets were separated slowly to reveal a familiar
format of images known from childhood – portrait photographs of
uniformed Shetlanders lost at war, WW1 - 4 per page set out formally
in a roll of honour; 140 pages of images – a total of 560 men. This
must have been a large percentage of the population of men in the Shetland
Islands.
Father
had been sent a copy of this publication - Shetland's
Roll of Honour and Roll of
Service produced
by T. & J. MANSON, Lerwick, in 1920 - in Australia, as if all
living Shetland folk had to share in the lament. In the old childhood
home, the roll had lain in its special place on the bottom shelf of
the dining room sideboard with the eight-inch-thick family bible that
had a heavily sculpted cover embossed with gold. Occasionally, as
children, either book would be taken out and perused with a puzzling
expectation that was never requieted. The Bible had interesting
forewords and spaces for family records etc. along with the usual
Victorian interpretations of the instructive biblical stories
illustrated in the mystical, 'Holman Hunt' style. The roll had photos
of men and other lists for recognition and remembrance. It meant
little to the young child, appearing boring and very old fashioned,
useless, a little like the memorials seen in churches and those
returned soldier monuments seen in every Australian town that, with
time, had all seemed to have lost any significant meaning to become
merely an artifact. The pages represented an era of loss and
suffering being recorded with the unusual, excessive emotional
Victorian display of facts. It was a good match for the Bible filled
with visual parables and allegories to inform and remind, but the
roll kept its real meaning for those who knew. To the outsider, the
images meant nothing, were nothing but a catalogue, a list: a relic
of another, unknown era.
Time
passed; the child became an adult. The book moved with the occupants.
Father died. The cottage on Unst, the childhood icon of that other
place - granny's home - was in danger of falling into ruin. It was
purchased. The idea had always been a romantic ideal: naive? - such are
childhood visions. The little home was done up in spite of all
impossibilities. Slowly the adult got to know the locals from
father's birthplace, Unst, and they him. This was the cottage that
father was born in. Places were learned; genealogies discovered;
relatives known; relationships disclosed; histories revealed. Life's
little things became clearer. The whole understanding of place came
to be comprehended in all of the integrated richness that island life
brings.
Some
time later on a trip to Unst, mother decided to donate the Roll of
Remembrance to the Unst Heritage Centre, in remembrance of father.
The publication was gladly received and is still well cared for. It
is truly historic. One always wondered if the roll should not have
found its home in the little cottage in order to fulfil its wholeness
- that of the house and the book - with its origins and reverences,
this provenance, to be like the pair of Victorian ceramic
mantle-piece dogs and fiddles that make the Shetland house a home. It
seemed that every place should have this book to give depth and
resonance to its meaning, its history, its remembrance, rather than
being a mere modern, synthetic reproduction impressed with itself,
clinically encompassing only the slick and new for ME and MY
reputation.
Then,
literally out of the blue, this book appeared at the house clearance,
as if it was meant to be. It was available for sale. In spite of its
poor state, it was purchased. Rarely has such a book in such
atrocious condition been purchased for such a sum, but it seemed to
be a necessity. At last, the cottage could truly touch the past, that
of the war and father. The roll could become a part of life again,
and learn more and tell more of it and the community it formed a part
of: its grief and hopes. This was a record of loss and commitment.
It was only a little after this purchase, a few hours in fact, that
the Ratter photo was acquired. It was a memorable day.
Ratter landscape - cloud, moon, sea and land
The
Ratter is another essential for Shetland homes. These are images
caught by a photographer of old whose prints recorded in beautiful
compositions and crystal sharp images, old Shetland place -
settlements and landscapes: their native beauty. So it was that
Shetland's Roll of Honour and Roll
of Service T. & J. Mason, Shetland News Offices, Lerwick, 1920 became,
along with the Ratter image of clouds in moonlight, a part of the
birthplace, the cottage of my grandmother, and her mother; my father.
The roll was paid for and taken home with two other books discovered
in the bedroom - Graham's The Shetland Dictionary and
Christie-Johnston's Shetland Words. It was all a lovely set of
things Shetland that could enrich habitation as well as inform.
Some
time later the roll was opened, just to see if all of the pages were
there. It appeared so; but one could not help noticing how two pages
in different parts of the photographic section had been repaired with
adhesive tape to stop them falling out. A closer look at the book
made one ponder: why was it so worn? One could only think of how it
must have been taken out and thumbed through time and time again by
loved ones remembering those gone – sons, brothers, cousins,
nephews, uncles, husbands, all now dead, lost.
The
book was divided into two parts: a roll of honour - the dead whose
images had been collected and published; and roll of service - names
of those who survived and returned. It recorded both the dead and the
living. To become so worn, the book must have been handled very
frequently. Who knows what emotions were involved as the images were
turned, turned to the same place again and again and again, so that
the pages eventually fell out, to be lovingly taped back up as a
repair to allow the sad eyes to peruse those gone in a terrible war
as a quiet lamentation. Each photograph had the name, the rank, the
role and the relatives, (parents, wives), the place of home, and
where and how the man was killed, and his age - they were all young
men; no women. One can envisage the despair, the sadness as the words
were read over and over and over; as the hands cradled the book with
care and hopeless despair, as the eyes met those in the familiar
image never to be seen again as flesh and blood, while recalling
those last moments when the hands touched, bodies embraced and eyes
met, lips caressed - that last goodbye: perhaps also wondering if it
was all worth it.
20 years
36 years
28 years
The
book, its state of disrepair, shows how it has been much cared for
rather than abused; how the loved ones at home have repeatedly
handled the book as a memorial, a remembrance, perhaps daily? Those
organising the house clearance said that it had been discovered in
the bottom of a high cupboard, tucked away safely, in a special,
protected place, like that held in the heart. Had the book been sent
to father so that he could read about those that he knew? Turning to
the Roll of Service, one could read about the Jamiesons and Spences
from Baliasta who had served. Father must have known each of these
individuals as well as the others from Unst, the island he left when
just nineteen. He too could read through the names and ponder; but
his book was not as worn as the one discovered in the house
clearance. Reading through the photographs, one notes that there are
no Jamiesons or Spences from Unst illustrated. There was no tattered
lament for those close. This book in Australia, it seems, was more
personally perused for others known: friends, neighbours and distant
relatives. Was it seen as a last goodbye; perhaps a lasting goodbye?
Did all from Baliasta return? Was there something to be proud of
here?
36 years
36 years
The
bold abstractions and knowledgeable schematics of history as told in
text books are all made real and personal in this roll that
identifies individuals, the place, method and date of death and their
ages, home and family. Rarely has history been made so gravely
explicit, so personally exposed as a set of facts. Instead of seeing
the book as a derelict item ready for the tip, or the outcome of
ignorant neglect, carelessness, it has come to be seen as a symbol of
sadness, an expression of longing and wondering; a lament of love tinged
with a silent, lingering regret: of hope lost. It is all the more
special because of this. One takes on the obligation of continued
care, a cradling of past lives and loves. It is this that makes the
tatty book so special, so essential a part of the old cottage. It is
never enough to just 'do up' an old place, no matter how sensitively
this might be carried out, or how 'Grand' a 'McCloud' design it might
be or be presented as: see -
http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2013/08/is-architecture-just-grand.html
A place does not become a home that resonates with time without the
richness of bits and pieces being incorporated into its being, its
shelter, 'sedimenting the past in the present.'* This roll now has
the honour of helping the cottage once again be one, a home that
touches life and living, its community, sedimenting it, cementing it
with love and remembrance. It has become a shelter for more than the
present as it echoes, reverberates quietly with thoughts for and
facts from the past. Reading the roll touches other lives and
unknown silences all nearby on this island, down the hill; over the rise:
family, friends, acquaintances. Remembrance is the core of being, of
being who we are. What are we without it? What are we without love?
What is architecture without it but a shell?
Each page was illustrated with images from home: Scalloway?
Memories of home: see -
Architects
should know this. Architecture has nothing to do with the cheeky immediacy
of the slick or smart people or things making declarations, demanding
the recognition and admiration of personal genius. A reading of the
roll tells something about the small, quiet feelings in life that are squashed by showy arrogance and the intolerance that creates both grand designs and wars -
'Blessed are the meek.' The personal horror of war is exposed in all
of its raw intimacies and specific realities: 'this man named . . . ,
from . . . , whose parents/wife were/was . . . , died in this way at
. . . on . . . - 560 men: 560 specific listings of facts, the horror
of each declared along with the personal resonance of family; of home
and loved ones: missing, gone. This void is what made this blue book so
tatty. One can only feel, be amazed by the tiny histories that are
recorded here, stories that will never reach the mighty, heroic tomes
on war like those written by Churchill, et.al. They will just remain
a part of intimate, ordinary life stories, like so much in this world that
gets neglected in favour of the preferred grand vision. There is nothing
heroic in war or in architecture. Academics need to know this; architects must remember this too. One of the most memorable architectural books read was not written by an architect,
but by a social historian. It was about lost places: towns, homes that have been
left, either by necessity or choice: the experience of loss, and, in some cases, e.g. the flooding of a town by a dam that drops in level, of return. War gave this experience to the
Shetlanders. The roll remembers, records, respects. This is life
lived; life lost; this is war, its impact on the ordinary everyday
seen as the mundane that never really is. Rarely has this been
recorded so clearly, so precisely. May they rest in peace: lest we
forget – but we do. Sadly, we never seem to learn to remember the tiny things in life: see BEGINNINGS in sidebar: 'remind us to remember.'
Drawing of Burrafirth? Sumburgh?
Illustration of Lerwick - top left-hand corner
*Adolf
Loos wrote about interiors in “Poor Little Rich Man”: Loos's
argument implied a rejection of the dictatorial manner in which
“stylish” homes had been decorated in the past. This position was
articulated forcefully in “Poor Little Rich Man.” Regardless
of approved taste, interiors were to be built up by owners
themselves, making each interior individual and unique, as were its
inhabitants. Such an interior would age with the family, changing as
it does, yet sedimenting the past in the “present.” On
Weathering The Life of Buildings in Time Mohsen Mostafavi and
David Leatherbarrow, MIT Press, Cambridge, 1993, p.82.
Signs of yearning for so many, so young
24 years
45 years
Most faces look directly into the camera, into the eyes of the reader.
21 years
19 years
22 years
25 years
31 years
48 years
21 years
24 years
30 years
and the list continues . . . 560.
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