It\u2019s such an amazing privilege to be able to spend my working day listening to these recordings and preparing the files and supporting documentation so that the recordings can be shared on our Project website.\u00a0 It\u2019s all very well to collect these valuable recordings, which tell us so much about our shared cultural lives, but it\u2019s also imperative that we can than share this material with a wider audience both to respect the time and energy given by our volunteer fieldworkers and interviewees and also to try to ensure these recordings are widely available and accessed.\u00a0 This ethos is at the heart of everything we do at the RESP and a central part of my job as RESP Archives Assistant.<\/p>\n
Another central part of the RESP work is to train local volunteer fieldworkers to make fieldwork recordings in their local area and it\u2019s rare for me to do any local fieldwork.\u00a0 However, I have been fortunate enough to be the interviewer on a small number of recordings made in Dumfries and Galloway and a significant local anniversary prompted this blog, about an interview I carried out in 2013, in Langholm, with Grace Brown.\u00a0 Also present that day, as cameraman, technician and fellow interviewer, was my colleague, Mark Mulhern, Senior Research Fellow at the EERC.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/resp\/files\/2022\/03\/DG17-1-4-1-225x300.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
In 1969, just a short time after Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon, Grace Brown and her colleagues on the Langholm town council \u2013 in a huge leap of faith and audacity – voted unanimously to write to Neil inviting him to become a Freeman of Langholm.\u00a0 As Grace explained to me, Langholm is the ancient homeland of the Armstrong clan and the town had been extremely excited and diligent in following Neil\u2019s progress in the time leading up to the moon landing.\u00a0 A letter was duly despatched, through a Langholm exile living in Houston, Texas, and, although they had to wait some time to hear back, Neil did accept that invitation and when he visited Scotland in 1972, to deliver the Mountbatten Lecture at the University of Edinburgh, he also travelled to Langholm to become the first man to receive the honour of Freeman of Langholm.<\/p>\n
For months before the visit, the town council were in a state of high alert and Grace remembers this event as the highlight of her career.\u00a0 As Neil was to be the very first Freeman of Langholm, a Burgess Ticket was commissioned, along with a ceremonial box to contain this.\u00a0 The box, made by a Kirkcudbright artist, was an exact representation of Hollows Tower. The whole community were excited about the upcoming visit and Langholm became a destination for press and public alike.\u00a0 Grace recalls the Chicago Tribune printed a map of the British Isles with only 2 places marked on it, London and Langholm!\u00a0 She also describes in detail the itinerary for the time that Neil and his wife, Jan, were in Langholm.\u00a0 One of the many gifts presented to the couple during the visit was a mohair shawl made from Lunar Tartan.\u00a0 This tartan, which reflected the colours of lunar rock brought back from Neil\u2019s voyage, had been designed and produced by cloth designer, Ian Maxwell, and partner Alasdair Irvine to celebrate the moon landing and the mohair stole was woven at their Esk Valley mill.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not going to say any more about the interview and hope I\u2019ve done enough to tempt you to listen to the interview in full, which you can do by following this link https:\/\/edin.ac\/3KwBBNi<\/a><\/p>\n In her presence, back in 2013, Grace bubbled with excitement and pride as she talked about the visit.\u00a0 It was such a pleasure and privilege to speak to her.\u00a0 At one point I said to her that Mark and I had been excited to meet her, a woman who had shaken hands with the first man to walk on the moon.\u00a0 \u2018That\u2019s right\u2019, she replied \u2018\u2026ah didn\u2019t wash ma hand for a week!\u2019<\/p>\n Caroline Milligan, RESP Archives Assistant<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I\u2019ve now been working with the EERC Regional Ethnology of Scotland Study since 2011 and for the CRC-RESP Archive Project since 2018.\u00a0 My jobs have allowed me to be involved with all aspects of our work, from training new fieldworkers … Continue reading ![\"\"](\"http:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/resp\/files\/2022\/03\/moon-2-e1646992624583-300x130.jpg\")
<\/p>\n