Dust and discovery

I’m not a well man. I’ve come down with something in the process of my doctoral research. The French philosopher Derrida identified it as the Mal d’archive [Archive Fever]. He uses this evocative phrase to denote, amongst other meanings, the feverous desire to possess and embody knowledge. But there is another type which most apprentice historians show symptoms of, identified by the social historian Carolyn Steedman in Dust - her irreverent book on history writing: the sheer boredom of the archival process. As she puts it, the historian might be energised by the delights to be unearthed through a good day’s graft amongst brittle parchments, but on entering the archive and settling down ‘the immediate ambition that excites you [is] to leave’. Fortunately for me the joys of discovery outweigh this feeling. But only just.

Beyond the instant gratification of finding unique material during the research process there is also a joy to be had in making conceptual links between the files of pencilled quotes you hand-achingly but lovingly reproduced. There are humble pleasures to be had as you behold poetry written by schoolchildren which has not seen the light of day for half a century. A sense of gravity, perhaps intrusion, is commonly felt as you sift through telegrams from monarchy, letters of condolence over someone’s death, or personal diaries which reveal intimate thoughts. The raw material entrusted to the archive – the primary source - invites a strong correspondence to objective truth, as the recently-departed historian Arthur Marwick posited in his The Nature of History. But most documents, one must remember, were never written with the historian in mind. So it is quite natural to feel privileged for access to the past and also responsible for eventually making sense of it all. Discovering documents and marshalling the fragments of the past into coherent prose is difficult and certainly requires discipline and constant reflection.

For me, however, the doors of perception are also flung open once you emerge from the archive into daylight. The Royal Geographical Society archives in Kensington, positioned as it is underneath the looming and imperious Albert Hall, makes you think about the energy of the Victorians and how they shaped the fabric – both physically and culturally – of British society. Uber-trendy Hoxton equally provides a setting for historical research and encounters with an alternate social fabric of London. Here the Alpine Club (which holds the world’s leading collection of books related to mountaineering) is nestled between DC Comics, The Prince’s Drawing School and Hoxton Square, home of the White Cube gallery. This space, populated with young creatives, is dynamic and motivational. The Square – site of many a lunchtime picnic – is a special retreat and a great place to write. That is, until you get interrupted by a bare-breasted Japanese girl interviewing for ‘Naked News’, but that’s another story.

The journey to the archives, both literally and metaphorically, has been a rite of passage and a voyage into the unknown. I’m not alone in experiencing the miseries of the Northern Line on the way to the British Newspaper Library at Colindale. My fellow travellers on the near-empty tube were either aeronautical buffs (The Royal Air Force Museum is close by) or hunchbacked grey-haired men in decaying tweed blazers, squinting as they pored over the THES. It was as if I was communing with my future. The territory beyond zone three should come with a health warning! The library itself is something of a shrine to historians. A pilgrimage must be made at least once during the doctoral apprenticeship, even though digitisation of national newspapers challenges the need to make this journey. It’s a shame in a way. Those of us who have ventured to Colindale have all experienced the antiquated delivery system, dark and secluded booths, the whirring of microfilm and the faint insect-like noises as the corner of newspapers are torn each time a page is turned. Mind you, you haven’t made it as a historian until you have donned the dainty white cotton gloves which the BBC Written Archive Centre in Reading always insists you wear. Post-doctoral research application number 1: the archival process and emasculation.