In praise of Royal Mail carts, and the absence of nosebleeds

On 22 June 1941, within hours of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, museum staff began evacuating the Hermitage and other heritage collections in and near Leningrad. One curator, Anatoly Kuchumov, wrote in his diary: “22 June. Flown through the halls this evening, packing what we can. 24 June. Not stopped for 24 hours. Comrades having nosebleeds from leaning over the packing crates. Run out of boxes and paper. Everyone is moving. We have taken even the typewriters. We will leave nothing for them.” Every time I help move a museum or archive, I remember this and think how lucky I am to be moving far less, and with far more prior warning.

So it is with the clearing of the Archives Search Room, which is now well under way. Last week we took down the bookshelves and transferred the Local History Library books, the book shop stock and many of the red pamphlet boxes to the underground store next door. Today and tomorrow we will move the rest of the pamphlet boxes, the Kelly’s directories and the electoral registers, after which the Search Room will be largely empty.

We are lucky in having had a great deal of help from Paul Stone’s Imago and from our volunteer David, who have greatly lightened the load. We are also lucky in having managed to get our hands on an excellent piece of equipment, namely a Royal Mail mail handling cart (which we, probably erroneously, call ‘the GPO trolley’.)

The trolley (or cart) is a high-sided contraption capable of carrying a 50 kg (that’s two very full suitcases, plus some hand luggage) load held in place by snap-fit nylon webbing. It even has a hand-brake.

Using this and our rather less capacious trolley (a sort of wheeled orange sarcophagus) we have been able to move vast quantities of books and pamphlet boxes in relatively few runs across the road, without having to pack anything in boxes or cases, and without a single nosebleed!

Our heartfelt thanks go out to the nameless Post Office engineers who designed the cart (or trolley.) Without it our move would have taken three times as long to execute.

Brent Archives will be closed from Monday 25 March 2013 and will reopen on Wednesday 24 April 2013 at 9am. During the temporary closure period, the archives team will not be able to respond to any research enquiries from the public.

From the 24 April, Brent Archives will be situated at George Furness House, 2-12 Grange Road, Willesden NW10 2QY. The archives will be open on Wednesdays (9am-8pm) and Saturdays (9am-5pm) on an appointments only basis. For further information or to make an appointment please call Brent Archives on 020 8937 3541 or e-mail us.

Posted by Malcolm