Meg Bertera-Berwick

Solstice on awe

Last year, I decided to watch the winter solstice on the Newgrange livestream. As the light suddenly and decidedly split the dark of the tomb, I found myself also suddenly and decidedly sobbing, quite involuntarily. This month's newsletter is about that, and my new relationship with the solstice.

That is a beautiful way of putting it!

🏳️‍⚧️🇵🇸 Quakers holding the line w steadfast solidarity

"After a ... year of mostly experiencing horror at ... the increasingly bad-from-the-start things happening in the world, I began another year of resistance deeply affirmed that I am still capable of a wild, proportionate, instinctive response to something both so ordinary and utterly tremendous."

Solstice on awe

Last year, I decided to watch the winter solstice on the Newgrange livestream. As the light suddenly and decidedly split the dark of the tomb, I found myself also suddenly and decidedly sobbing, quite involuntarily. This month's newsletter is about that, and my new relationship with the solstice.

People who aspire to be academics: I wish to live a life of the mind

Actual academics:

A thread on how I bought an old book about a place I am also writing a book about, and became the unsuspecting owner of a rare 19th #Glasgow artefact, connected with one of Glasgow’s most picturesque bridges!

I will send her an email! What a fascinating job. Thanks Emily!!

A fascinating paper trail for any Sou-siders...

I agree! I'd love to keep it hyper-local; so many things from the area have been swept into bigger collections/exhibitions over the years, which unfortunately results in forgetting at the original site. I'd love for local folks to be see things like this where they were made/used.

What an interesting idea! I'd certainly love to loan it somewhere local like Holmwood House for display.

Ahh that's such a good shout, thank you!! Stupidly I hadn't thought of it, but will absolutely email/make my way over there soon and see what they say!

Paging @sghetorg.bsky.social @lostglasgow.bsky.social @scotindustria.bsky.social @newglasgowsociety.bsky.social @glasgowheritage.bsky.social @uofglasgowasc.bsky.social @natlibscot.bsky.social

Who knows how many such labels might still exist, if any. If you know of others, or have any advice about how to care for such an unusual remnant of Glasgow’s pre-urban industrial past, please do get in touch with me here or email me at meg.berteraberwick@gmail.com.

The Snuff Mill Bridge is such an iconic part of the Cathcart landscape, a beautiful and resilient relic of the rural place this used to be. It boggles the mind that a slip of paper from the mill’s 19th century life has been preserved for most of its 127+ years between the pages of this little book!

It’s in surprisingly good condition. I feel strongly that it should be shared with others, but how? Do I commission a professional to take it out for proper conservation? Put it on display? Loan it out to museums/local exhibitions? Is it now simply part of the life of the book, forever?

I don’t know what led him to glue this 19th century label into the binding along with all his other surplus knowledge. I’m glad he did, and honoured to be the custodian now for both his book and the last known remnants of his physical effects. But I’m perplexed what to do with the label myself.

bits of lore, the death dates of friends and acquaintances quoted throughout, sentences where he had been wrong and wanted to remember correctly. No longer just a book about a place, but a scrapbook of one man’s curiosity and devotion.

In the years between its publication and his death in 1942, Gartshore continued to fill this little book with information about this beloved landscape that he didn’t want to lose:

By some wild stroke of luck, I found that I was holding the author’s own personal copy of his own book. For a local/environmental historian, a completely mind-boggling and emotionally moving coincidence of right time, right place, which I still can’t quite believe!

When I unfolded the paper tucked into the book, it was a beautiful coloured label for Mill No. 19.

Despite the bridge’s name, the mill mostly made card paper for bookbinding. On page 40 Gartshore wrote, “In the paper trade the mill was known as ‘No.19,’ as is verified by a beautiful coloured label which I possess, and which was used as an address for parcels.”

At the top of the page, Gartshore’s text carried on describing the mill at the picturesque Snuff Mill Bridge. Long beloved by locals, the 17th century hunchback bridge and neighbouring Lindsay tenement became a popular destination for cooped-up walkers during the first lockdown.

But then I turned to page 40, where a much larger piece of paper was pasted into the binding and folded onto itself.

There was a lot of marginalia too, in pen and pencil, correcting and expanding upon the author. This copy had clearly been owned by another Cathcart local, whose scraps and scribbles formed a conversation with the author’s own text.

When I began reading, I found scraps of paper pasted into the binding, full of asides and additional information in the thick, old-fashioned print of a typewriter.

A week later, I held the little blue book in my hands. Whatever guilt I felt for not supporting that local bookstore was short-lived: the eBay copy was signed by the author, and I liked the added nearness of knowing his handwriting along with his nearby address and burial place in Cathcart Cemetery.

Let’s set the scene: I recently found a copy of Alexander Gartshore’s 1938 book Cathcart Memories, but could not afford the £45 that the very wonderful bookstore was asking for. My bargain-hunting friend found a copy on eBay going for around £25. I offered about £17.

A thread on how I bought an old book about a place I am also writing a book about, and became the unsuspecting owner of a rare 19th #Glasgow artefact, connected with one of Glasgow’s most picturesque bridges!

#naturewriting