Latest update from @britishlibrary.bsky.social says they are launching a new version of their main catalogue on Monday 8 December and around that time also launch an interim version of their Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue. Hooray!
www.bl.uk/stories/news...

One of the visceral items in the archive here is a letter from her to an Aldeburgh resident, setting out how she was offered a post in apartheid S. Africa which was withdrawn when she arrived and they saw the colour of her skin:
www.bpacatalogue.org/archive/MSC109. The injustice burns on the page.

Enjoy! I saw them in Sheffield last month and it was a surprisingly warm experience; the tribe gathering once again, celebrating the fact of still being here and mourning those like Kirk who aren't.

See also the discovery scene, when the head calls out to searchers ("Her, her, her" in Anglo-Saxon): bsky.app/profile/enni...

It's always quite something to handle this instrument - as well as being played by two major composers (and taken across the Atlantic and back by Britten), it also took part in two Verdi premieres. Today my job was to dispatch it to the specialist restorer; keep well, viola, and see you soon. 2/2

Good to hear! I often point out to kids from Lowestoft how they've got a seriously big figure to claim as their own: my local town growing up was Crewe, and nobody famous has *ever* come from Crewe.

God yes. The way that she was just suddenly there on the edge of the firelight, freezing the ground...

The other perk of the timing, of course, is that you get to do some Christmas shopping by going crazy with a different insitution's merch.
(Illustration, book-tree in the basement shop.)