Transcript of the National Library of Scotland's Treasures podcast, episode 3:
Julia Sutherland: Hello and thanks for downloading National Treasures, a podcast from the National Library of Scotland. We've opened the treasures gallery where over the next five years, you'll be able to come and see a rotating collection of amazing and inspiring items from the library’s collections right here in the heart of Edinburgh. I'm Julia Sutherland and I'm here with three real-life national treasures who are going to try and convince me that they've found the most interesting artefact, then I have the privilege of being able to award a Pick of the Podcast prize to my most persuasive guest, but which one will it be?
Well, today, I am delighted to introduce my guests. First up, you might have seen her on 'Live at the Apollo', 'Have I Got News for You', or on the 'Royal Variety Show' – it-s the very funny Jo Caulfield.
Jo Caulfield: Hello.
Julia: We’ve also got star of daytime TV, journalist, presenter, and surely a future Strictly Come Dancer, Martel Maxwell.
Martel Maxwell: Hello, Julia.
Julia: And our final national treasure, it's the incredibly funny actor, writer, stand-up comedian, star or Radio 4 - it's Jamie MacDonald. Hello, Jamie!
Jamie MacDonald: Hi, Julia, how you doing?
Julia: Great, delighted to have all three of you here today. Now, you've all had a look at some of the amazing things that are in the gallery. They might be extremely rare and significant, like the copy of the Gutenberg Bible. It's absolutely stunning, it’s a beautiful thing. There are handwritten manuscripts and letters from people like Robert Burns, Charles Darwin, and Mary Queen of Scots. We've got first editions of iconic books and comics, and so many different and surprising things that help us to understand Scotland's story and our relationship with the rest of the world, then there's a sound archive, a collection of moving images, maps, leaflets, programmes, the list just goes on and on. It's an absolutely stunning collection.
Now, I've asked all three of you to have a look at some of the items on display and pick a couple of things that caught your attention. So, Jo, kick us off. Tell me what caught your eye in the collection.
Jo: Well, they have a collection of Scottish women novelists and writers who were contemporaries of Jane Austen's but for some reason, you know, they haven't stayed in the public mind but at the time, some of them were much more successful than Jane Austen. Some of them … One I particularly like because she sounds very funny. Her books are very funny and scathing about Edinburgh society and everyone in the area was trying to work out if she was writing about them or who it was, and these books are all available. You can download them. They've all been downloaded digitally so you can read them.
Julia: Well, that sounds really interesting. I don't think I can name a single Scottish female writer that would have been a contemporary of Jane Austen, so that’s a good point, and what's the other item that jumped out for you?
Jo: Well, she’s done everything. She's a botanist, explorer, writer, photographer, filmmaker, Isobel Wylie Hutchison, who was around from 1889. She started travelling when she was about 30. I suppose it took women a while to get themselves together then [laughter] before you could go, 'Hey, I can do what I like and I'm going to the Arctic, alright?' [laughter], and so that's what she did and she was going until about 1982.
Julia: Yes, an incredible woman. Well, I would look forward to hearing more about that. Martel, what about you?
Martel: Well, Julia, you can’t have a national collection of course without Robert Burns. I love the sound of his handwritten letters that would be on display and his poems. I think he’s amazing. His life just intrigues me. He did so much in the 37 years he was alive, and I think it’s a right of passage for every schoolkid to do a Robert Burns poem. And also DC Thomson, very close to my heart. DC Thomson have this fantastic catalogue at the National Gallery which includes … you know, it’s got all the editions of 'Oor Wullie', 'The Beano', and 'The Dandy'. I’m from Dundee. I’m a Dundee ambassador. I'm so passionate about it. It's not a paid job, by the way, it's all about the passion [laughter], but what else could bring … what else could bring every age group together? If you're going with your granny, maybe your great granny, she's bound to have from the 30s known 'The Beano', 'The Dandy', and right up to it being on … on TV now. It’s not all about Pokémon. There's this amazing, local, historical, journalistic group called DC Thomson's and I'm here to fly the flag.
Julia: Thanks, Martel. Jamie, what have you found in the archive?
Jamie: I was quite interested in the… there's this kind of archive that was created by a Bishop in the 1700s on Culloden and Bonnie Prince Charlie because there's some … I was just kind of under the impression that, you know, England turned up with a massive army and then we were just like a rabble of heid cases that were just going to go for it, but … but this map, you know, shows that we were actually quite regimented. And the other item is the sound archive because, well as you know, I can't see, so having this … this is a fantastic audio archive of about 65,000 audio files ranging from music to spoken word to other more official things like the sinking of the Titanic, but it's very inclusive.
Julia: Yes, it certainly is, and it's extremely wide ranging. There are some fantastic things in that collection. Well, it is … all three of you: it's your job to convince me that one of these treasures is worthy of being Pick of the Podcast this week. So, let's start with you, Jo. Now, you said the two things you picked out was Jane Austen's Scottish women contemporaries and Isobel Wylie Hutchison. You need to get behind one of the two. So, tell me about Austen's contemporaries first.
Jo: Well, it's just amazing to think that these women at the time were so well thought of and their writing so well thought of and so popular. There's one … there's Elizabeth Hamilton and she wrote a story, it was called 'The Cottagers of Glenburnie' and what she also does is highlight troubles and struggles of people who are poor, but she also had comedy characters and there were catchphrases. People would say catchphrases from her books, you know, so that's got to be pretty popular.
Julia: Yes.
Jo: And then I like this other one, Mary Brunton. Now, she wrote what were called 'romantic adventures' and she had a very romantic adventure herself because she eloped. She eloped with her brother's tutor, and actually it turned out very well. They were very happy together and the brother's tutor, who was poor. so that was a terrible thing, he ended up being a very prominent minister in Edinburgh. So, she did well, but what is interesting about her … it says that Jane Austen wrote a very scathing critique of her work and I wonder if it's because Mary Brunton was very happily married and having a lovely time and being a successful novelist [laughter] and maybe that was too much for Jane going, 'No, you can’t have it both ways'.
And then there's another one, Susan Ferrier, and she was the one who really wrote about society as it was, and she was the one that everyone was thinking, 'Is she writing about me?' and that made her extremely sort of popular and unpopular at the same time, but she got huge fees as well for her writing. Again, much more than Jane Austen was getting paid and I think it's just amazing, because you can just get these at the Library and you can download them and read them, and if you're any kind of a fan of Jane Austen, which I am, then I'm very excited to know that there’s some new writers that I can get hold of.
Julia: Yeah, and I think actually that kind of female perspective … I recently got a chance to get a couple of days away and re-engage with reading, which was my absolute passion as a child, and because of the way we live nowadays, I'’s so hard to focus long enough to read a book and it's something I was worried I'd lost the ability to do, but I actually was read … I picked a Sally Rooney book as my first book to get back into it and I thought, gosh, this is so … it just made me so aware of how many of my favourite authors were male and what a different kind of perspective that brings to their writing, and to think of all these … these female writers who were able to really illuminate what it was like, what society was like and comment on that, and with wit and with a success as well. I just thought, gosh, how ridiculous that I'd never heard of any of these women [laughter], you know, and a really great way to introduce them to people's lives and for us to be able to enjoy their books. That's a brilliant choice. It's going to be tough then. What's the other … what's the other thing that you picked out from the collection?
Jo: Well, an amazing woman that I had never heard of, which is bad of me, but great to find out about her. She's called Isobel Wylie Hutchison. Great name even!
Julia: Yes.
Jo: And so she was an explorer. She's from a sort of, you know, well-to-do Scottish family. I mean, if you read about her and then you see pictures and photos of her where she grew up and it’s a castle, but because I live in Scotland now, I know how common castles are [laughter]. So, you do, 'Oh, she lived in a castle', and you go, 'Yeah, but it's sort of a smallish … like a … it's like a semi-detached castle' [laughter]. So, they’re not rolling in it, but well-to do enough, but then there's a bit of tragedy. Her father dies when she's 10. There's five children, but two of the boys die. One dies in the war and one just dies, because people died a lot then, and so then there's just the mother and the daughters, and they're very close to each other. And her sister gets married and this seemed to have a big effect on her because her sister married someone in the Navy, which meant that she had to follow her husband around, as he got posted to different naval bases, and Isobel just thought this was atrocious because you had no control over your own life. So, she said to her mother very early on, 'I won’t be getting married', because she wanted to do her own thing.
Julia: Yeah, good for her.
Jo: There's sort of a casual mention of how … she was very … she was very highly educated, but I think just because she was very smart. I was sort of reading things about her when it says how many languages she spoke, just very casually, it goes, 'She spoke Italian, Gaelic, Greek, Hebrew, Danish, Icelandic, Greenlandic' - which I didn’t even know was a language, so I apologise [laughter] - 'and Inuit', and it seems that she was one of those people … Oh she’d spend a couple of weeks in Denmark and then go, 'Oh, I seem to have mastered Danish' [laughter].
Julia: She's incredible, absolutely, and I think the fact that she was a woman as well, which it was very unusual for a woman to be doing what she was doing and going exploring to places that were really far flung and really challenging trips.
Jo: Yeah, not comfortable places.
Julia: No, absolutely not [laughter]. Off to East Greenland and then a year in Umanak in North Greenland. Her experiences there would have been quite different from her male counterparts because she was able to sort of ingratiate herself with the people and with the … with the sort of culture in a way and get to know more about how people lived their lives. So, that was a really valuable account for … to be able to document.
Jo: Yes. So, I think she did get a different side because if they would arrive somewhere in their boat and everyone's unloading, and they would go, 'Oh, we’ll take the lady', you know, because obviously she can't be lifting things, 'So, we’ll take her and have tea', and she would be immediately right in with the people and watching the way they live. Oh, there are some beautiful photographs of her with people in Iceland and Greenland and she's right in amongst them, some amazing outfits as well, and there's her writing in her diary.
She was a great diary keeper, and I think there’s lovely insights into her in the diaries and how and why she liked to travel. There’s one where she does go on - on what I would think is a better trip - going to Morocco, and it's with Thomas Cook. So, go now, this is a holiday, isn't it, this is great [laughter], and of course she hates it and she writes quite scathingly about the person that she goes travelling with. 'A Miss G', that's all it says, and she says, 'has quarrelled with me'. She says, 'I was too Scotch and independent. So, now I am free and I'll not travel with her again'. You know, it's marvellous, just sort of going, well, that's why she has to go on her own to places.
Julia: She was also a respected filmmaker which just … I mean, how many strings does this woman's bow have? She … so, there are films in the library from her trips to Greenland and I think there's some lovely things in there. She filmed some of the local people doing some Scottish dance. It's some reels and the Scottish whalers had taught the local people …
Jo: Yes.
Julia: … and so she filmed them like, you know, 100 years later still dancing these Scottish dances with enthusiasm, which is really beautiful, and that’s another, you know, gem in this … in this collection. What about you, Jo, in terms of you personally, do you feel like you can relate because of that kind of experience of being a woman in what would have been predominantly a man's world and being an adventurer and striking out and having that sort of spirit. Is that something that you could relate to personally?
Jo: I don't relate to the wanting to be somewhere really uncomfortable [laughter] but I really … I do relate to the feeling you have when you’re travelling and I have sometimes as a comic when you're on the road and you might be away for a while or you … There’s a contentment in it and that's what I can relate to in her - that I could see why she would be content because you're somehow removed from life and there is a piece weirdly in that travelling, and also when you concentrate on work the way she did and find something that you're really passionate about and you go, 'Right, that's … that’s' …, and she obviously did that and thought, 'That’s the thing for me and that’s what my life will be', and just also not doing what other people think you should do [laughter].
It’s always great to read about women and going, 'Oh great, she did her own thing, good for you'. Yes, and people might have thought they were weird or odd or whatever and then other people admired her, like you say, and she was very respected amongst that sort of community, and National Geographic would publish her and things like that, but I think it's that … just that bravery to just plough your own furrow.
Julia: It's really, really inspiring stuff, and again, you know, so much to explore in the collection there. An excellent, excellent choice I think, Jo. It's going to be tough to beat. So, Isobel Wylie Hutchison is your pick for my Pick of the Podcast, but can Martel and Jamie be more persuasive with theirs? Jamie, let's come to you next. You picked, well two things, first of all the archive of Jacobite treasures. What was it that drew you to that?
Jamie: I think Culloden's one of those things that I've always thought I've known about but actually when I was kind of researching this, I know nothing about it at all. I thought we were all kind of disorganised and the English just ran us … ran us down really, but there's a map, this kind of amazing map that was written by a French artillery officer that’s got this beautiful kind of detail of … We were set up basically to win. It was a kind of … it wasn’t definitely a foregone conclusion. We were regimented, the clans were there. I’m proud to say the MacDonalds were there, not at the front but, you know, why would you [laughter]?
And there was a Felix O'Neill who wrote a … they were on the run from the English and he had a pack of playing cards which he wrote his account of the battle and stuff on, and that's in the collection as well, and that … that just sounds amazing, not that he had a chance to write the memoir on playing cards but that he took a set to cards to Culloden [laughter]. He thought, you know, maybe after we finish, we can have a game of snap [laughter].
Julia: There's something really, I think, very intimate about the … seeing his writing, his handwriting on these cards. You know, you see the diamonds in the background and his beautiful script neatly written out on the front and the back of all these cards, and it's just that sort of human connection to something which quite often when we learn about all these things, the battles and history, you feel a bit disconnected from it. It sort of feels like something that has just happened in books, even though I know it was obviously very real, but seeing artefacts like that that come from a person. I don’' know, it somehow just gives you that connection. Actually seeing them and thinking, 'Wow, this actually touched his skin'. This is a part of history that you can see, feel, and get that sense of being more connected to history when it's really brought to life with all these artefacts
Jamie: Yeah, it's nice and unfiltered, isn't it? You’re not going through any kind of third party. It's that guy wrote on that card.
Julia: Well, Jamie, excellent choice there, but your other pick was the sound archive. What was it that drew you to that?
Jamie: Well, museums by and large aren’t very interesting for blind people. You go in there, everyone's quiet, telling you to shush [laughter] and there’s people standing still in front of, well, bits of wall as far as I can make out, and so having this sound archive is 65,000 individual files that basically has an audio history of Scotland stretching back further than you think.
So, it goes back … I think kind of mid-1800s they started recording sound, which I didn't know that, and what the Scottish museum are doing is they're digitising all of these archives because it's now getting very, very difficult to maintain a ghetto blaster [laughter]. So, these CDs and all these archaic forms of sound production, like these wax cylinders, are becoming harder and harder to hear in their original form. So, they’re all being digitised so it makes it very, very accessible, and you’ve got ranging wild things, like it's all that stuff … you know, you remember the kind of … you hear the kind of crackle of … it sounds like somebody's eating Rice Crispies over the top of it and a kind of distant Scottish Highland voice describing how awful some of the kind of old lives were.
Julia: Was there any of the items in particular, Jamie, that fascinated you?
Jamie: Oh, yeah. There’s a really old recording of JS Skinner who is a very famous fiddler, Scottish folk fiddler from back in the day. He’s kind of like the … he’s kind of like the Shawn Mendes of Northeast folk [laughter].
Julia: I think that might be the first time he's ever been described in that way, Jamie [laughter].
Jamie: Probably the last [laughter].
Julia: Yeah, probably.
Jamie: But he was amazing. Like I … because I play a bit of fiddle and JS Skinner's one of these guys you learn a lot of, you know, him and there’s like Niel Gow and stuff, he was a bit earlier, but he’s one of the big names in Scottish folk traditional music and I didn’t realise he recorded it 110 years ago. I didn't realise he was still alive then. So, there's actually a recording that I've actually listened to and it's him playing one of his tunes, and he was amazing. He was … he was a very flashy fiddle player, so very inspiring. So, I think to be able to hear JS Skinner actually playing his tunes, I found it … it blew me away. I thought it was fantastic.
Julia: Well, Jamie, you said you'd had a chance to have a wee listen, but we can actually all have a listen to a bit of JS Skinner just now. Let's hear a bit of a jig and a reel.
[JS Skinner audio clip playing.]
Julia: Very nice stuff there from the Strathspey king himself, James Scott Skinner, one of the most influential fiddlers in Scottish traditional music history. Jamie, you said you play the fiddle yourself. Have you been inspired? Have you learned any of his music yourself?
Jamie: Yeah, I mean they’re all … what you know about a James Scott Skinner tune is that they're kind of upbeat because a lot of traditional music is all about like, you know, 'my bonny lass lost her man to the sea'. You cry, you know, but JS Skinner is a kind of … not uniquely upbeat but he did some pretty flashy tunes. He's much better than I ever will be, so don't ask me to play a James Scott Skinner tune [laughter].
Julia: I loved listening to that and your description of there being like Rice Crispies crackling over it is perfect [laughter] and I know it's special to you, Jamie. It’s great for you to be able to hear things particularly but listening to that, I do wonder if too much of what we go into museums, galleries, and see and read, I’d love to hear more as well. I’d never thought about that.
Jo: I really love listening to oral history because I always think the accents and voices are so interesting, how they've changed. Even if you listen to something from the 60s, how different people talk, or how they present themselves. There was a way people sort of presented themselves like it was very, very important. Like working class people would put on a certain accent and everyone had different ways of speaking, but I also … that crackle was lovely to hear or you're going, 'Make it sound old, put more of those crackles on' [laughter]. It's great, people really like the crackles [laughter].
Julia: Will you stop eating cereal? We're trying to record here [laughter]. Yeah, but Jamie, before we move on, do you have your fiddle with you?
Jamie: I do. I was … not as like, hey, what's this little thing here [laughter].
Julia: What are you going to play for us, Jamie?
Jamie: I’m going to play a song, it's a Shetland tune called 'Spootiskerry'.
[Jamie playing fiddle.]
Jamie: Oh god, I battered the computer there [laughter].
Jo: Woo hoo!
Julia: Is that what you've been doing with your lockdown, Jamie?
Martel: Well done.
Jamie: It has actually, yeah, yeah. I've become a musician.
Julia: Okay. Well, I'm not sure you’re quite going to be challenging the Strathspey king, but excellent stuff. Nice to hear that.
Jamie: Aye, alright, Julia [laughter].
Jo: That's a bit harsh [laughter].
Julia: He's an absolute legend.
Martel: Come on, that was good!
Julia: That was not harsh!
Martel: That was a fiddle. Could you do that? That was brilliant. Julia [laughter].
Julia: Listen, I do karaoke, but I don't for a second think that I'm Beyonce. Well, actually maybe sometimes I do [laughter].
Martel: I've seen you, you do [laughter].
Julia: Let's move on now that I've insulted Jamie [laughter]. Okay, right. Well, we've had music from Jamie, beautiful music from Jamie there, and we've had a visionary world traveller from Jo. So, Martel, what have you got for us today?
Martel: Well, Jo flew the flag for the girls and I'm going to fly the flag for, first of all, Rabbie Burns. So, the National Library's collection could not be complete without the … you know, some of the things that are on display by Robert Burns, for example, handwritten letters. A bit like Jamie saying, I like taking the formality out of things, it’s not just the printed word but actually seeing somebody's … the curls and the loops, how they did their t's. I am so fascinated and I'm not just saying that. I mean, anyone who knows me, after a few drinks, I will be reciting Burns, especially when I lived in London when I thought I had something to prove, you know, the Scottish … I needed everyone to know how Scottish I was, and Julia, I thought you'd never ask, you want me to say it, right [laughter].
Julia: Yeah, that's quite the life hack and I love it. So, go on then, let's hear it. What's it … which poem is it?
Martel: It's called 'John Anderson' and, you know, I recite it a lot and it’s basically about a couple who met and now they're older and he's bald but she still loves him. It's a wee bit like me and my husband. You ready?
Julia: [Laughter] okay, take it away.
Martel: John Anderson by Robert Burns. [singing] John Anderson my jo, John, when we were first acquent, your locks were like the raven and your bonnie brow was brent; but now your brow is beld, John, and your locks are like the snaw, but blessings on your frosty pow, John Anderson, my jo! John Anderson my jo, John, we clamb the hill thegither, and monie a cantie day, John, we've had wi' ane another. Now we maun totter down, John, but hand in hand we'll go, and sleep thegither at the foot, John Anderson, my jo!
Julia: Oh, lovely. Well done. Very nice, Martel.
Jo: Oh, lovely.
Jamie: Very nice.
Julia: Very good, and I have to say, people do tend to dwell on his philandering ways but actually Rabbie Burns was a great believer in the rights of women and held women, quite rightly, socially and intellectually as equals, which wasn't bad for a man that was born in 1759. Jo, you wouldn't have grown up having to do all these poems at least once a year. What's your experience of Rabbie Burns? When did you first become aware of him?
Jo: When people offered me money to talk about him [laughter] at Burns suppers, you see. Exactly, I'd never heard of Burns Suppers until I came to Scotland and then they said … and I said, 'Well, what is it?', and they said, 'Well, you talk about men', and I thought, well I do that in my act, and funnily enough, I had picked that same poem. I often do a bit from 'John Anderson my jo' because I think it's lovely and romantic and sweet because obviously, I have to … I've slagged men off and then I do that at the end of it [laughter] and I agree with you that he … philanderer, everything, but he was on the side of women. I think he was also a great one for calling out hypocrisy in people, and he wrote so much, didn’t he? That's the thing. Yes, he's out having a great time, but also at some point, he's doing the work.
Julia: Yeah, we have to love Rabbie and the more we can learn about him and read his letters that are in this collection, I think really bring his life to light even more than we've perhaps experienced in our lives of just having to learn the odd poem for school. So, Martel, that was your first choice, Rabbie Burns. That's a big one. What’s your other one?
Martel: Okay. So, when you're up against … at the National Library, when you're up against the first printed bible, Folio of Shakespeare, letters by Mary Queen of Scots, this might sound like, you know, it's not worthy. I am a Dundonian, not actually born and bred. I was born in London but to two Dundonian parents. I'd come back up here, I love Dundee, but DC Thomsons for me is something that … and it's maybe the only thing, or one of the few things you can say that you could visit this exhibition … my great gran who was born in 1933 and, say, my eldest son, Monty, who is eight years old, they could both go and experience DC Thomson's. From 'The Dandy' to Dennis the Menace to the Bash Street Kids. The first 'Dandy' was published in 1937. There is only an estimated 15 or so of them surviving. That's going to be on show. So, my gran would remember it, my great gran, her … his great gran, my gran would remember it from her childhood days. Are there many things that could span those generations?
So, you’d be going and you'd be doing that, and also just the fact that I'm very proud of in this world of globalisation where everything, you know, the news comes from London - it's very hard to get local news - there’s this company who is an old family company who have newspapers. They have 'The Beezer', 'The Topper', the 'Jackie', 'Commando', 'Warlord', 'People’s Friend', 'Twinkle', 'The Sunday Post', 'The Dundee Courier'.
They’re still providing loads of jobs, and I look back in my career as a journalist, I used to try and get into the parties I wasn’t allowed to. I hid in pianos, I hid in toilets, I did anything … I climbed through tunnels to get things as a showbiz reporter and now I write a gentle column once a week for 'The Evening Telegraph'. The strapline is 'Martel Maxwell from aff the telly to your tully', and I can write about something and Davy in the street in Dundee stops me and says, 'How’s your back, Martel?'. I've forgotten I've written about it in this local paper that's talking to local people. I think we need to have it there. Julia, I'm so passionate. I … things like the Bash Street Kids, like the Bash Street Kids, the …
Actually, the original animator was looking out of his window - DC Thomson's beautiful building in the heart of Dundee - and he was looking at the playground where I went to school, where my boys went to school. He looked at the wee boys with their shorts and their …, their knee-high socks, and that’s where he started drawing the pictures. That’s the Bash Street Kids. Now, you might think, well maybe it's a bit too personal, maybe it doesn't extend to everyone in Scotland or beyond, but let's face it, Glasgow, Edinburgh, is going to be represented. I'd love a bit of Dundee. I mean, Jo, do you know what … not having grown up in Scotland, which … are you familiar with the term 'jings, crivens and help ma boab'?
Jo: Indeed, yes. All of that. I mean, growing up, I wasn't ever aware that they were printed or made in Scotland at all. They were just everywhere.
Martel: Oh really?
Jo: Yeah. It wasn't a thing, you know. So, then it's weird because Bash Street Kids to me were little Cockney kids. That's how I always imagined them speaking. It was only things like 'The Broons' where it was like, 'Oh, they’re Scottish', because I don't know what they're saying.
Julia: No getting away from that [laughter].
Jo: Yeah, but just … I mean, the fact that I think of them as being all over the world.
Martel: You know, it means something to us all and it’s easy to think that maybe they're a bit outdated now, but you'll be watching TV and it’s all Pokémon and Avengers, and then suddenly Dennis the Menace will come on. He's still there, it's still new, it's still cartoons. Kids still love it. So, I think it is evocative, that's exactly it.
Julia: Oh yeah. Yeah. My son was getting 'The Beano' until relatively recently. He's 13 now so he’s slightly outgrown it, but yeah, he would look forward to that coming through the … coming through the letter box and sit and absorb himself in it, and it was just lovely to see. It just … it felt nice that that that was something that, you know, children can still enjoy in this world where they’ve got their phones and they've got, as you say, you know, Pokémon and all sorts of, memes and everything. They could actually still sit down and enjoy a comic book.
Martel: A lot of ex-pat Scots who lived abroad would … they would get all of the 'People's Friend', or 'The Sunday Post', or 'The Dandy' for the kids, they’d get it sent. The Beano was an instant success. By 1950, there were around two million copies for each issue, and that … I don’t think there’s a national newspaper selling that in actual physical copies now. So, the success was astonishing and I love the fact that it’s just … Well, it shows you that it can be done as well, like a family can start this business and it doesn’t all have to be about the big corporates. I like that that happened and is still there.
Julia: So, that's your pick, of course, The Beano's and The Dandy's, the DC Thomson, Dundee's factory of fun collection there. So, that's something we can all definitely look forward to catching up on and revisiting our childhood by seeing some of those fantastic early editions.
Well, we’re just about out of time for today. So, I need to decide who's been the most convincing and who will get this week’s Pick of the Podcast. Wow, it is a tough one today because everybody's picked some really fascinating stuff. I was very tempted to give it to Jamie's sound archive. It was obviously beautiful to hear that fiddle there and of course there's so much in the sound archive that really brings to life Scottish history and the way we lived and of course how we interacted with the rest of the world. So, oh, it's such a great collection, so much in it, but I think just pipped at the post, I'm going to give it …
This week, the pick of the podcast is going to be Jo's pick which is Isobel Wylie Hutchison's travels and all the materials that relate to everything that she did and some of her films and everything. I'm just … I'm so fascinated by this woman that I'd never heard of who was such an inspiring explorer and writer, and yeah, definitely want to go and check that out.
So, I'm going to make Isobel Wylie Hutchison the Pick of the Podcast this week.
Jo: Woo hoo!
Jamie: Good choice.
Martel: Great choice. Well done.
Julia: Thank you so much to Jo Caulfield, Martel Maxwell and Jamie MacDonald for being great guests today. We've covered travel, art, photography, music, comics, and comedy, and yet we have still hardly scratched the surface of the treasures that are on display at the Library over the coming years. For more information, you can visit nls.uk. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook and subscribe to this podcast so you can get the next episode with more national treasures. I was Julia Sutherland and this was National Treasures from the National Library of Scotland.