Page 74 - Through a glass brightly

Somebody, in one of the many, many emails, suggested that our emails should be kept as a record of a) what it was like to live through the ‘Lockdown’ (indeed, I gather the ‘government’ is asking for examples of this very idea for the archives); and b) more importantly, what it was like to be at school 60+ years ago. I am very taken with this idea - I think the content of many of the emails give an absolutely fascinating glimpse into a girls’ grammar school of 60 years ago. (Incidentally, if anything is ‘published' it should be Val’s wonderful diaries!)
At first, I just stored the emails in a Mailbox. I am, (as you probably all recognised 60 years ago!) on the OCD spectrum - the good side of which is that I am so organised I make everyone sick. The upside of this is that I have the emails!!
The downside is that my Mac computer gathers emails together (there must be a way of stopping this!) so that each new email comes with a long tail of the previous emails. This means that I have endless duplications. This makes me sick!
So.......... I started by trying to collect just the one email, in the chronological order in which they arrived. It would, really, be better to organise them under subjects -’the Queen’s visit’, the production of ’Twelfth Night’ etc but if you want that - on yer bike!!! It’s been hard enough just getting them in chronological order when some come from the antipodes and some from the ex-colonials at all times of the day and night! So, I think I would record them in chronological order and leave it to future historians to sort out the themes. (That’s what research is about after all - make ‘em work I say! Sorry, future historians)
I’ve left out the introductions and conclusions which are repetitive and anything which is just a quickie. I’ve also left out, reluctantly, the videos. No-one in 2120 will be able to open the videos!
So far, so good, and the current treatise, O Theophilus, runs to 41 pages. And counting ... we’re not out of this yet!
Now we need a good snappy title! Suggestions, please, in an email!
Then we need a paragraph explaining what coronavirus, lockdown, emails and our correspondence is all about. Please could some-one write this!
It then seemed to me that it would be rather attractive to put a photograph of each of us at the beginning and Val, Jenny and I have all trailed the 150 photos I sent you for suitable portraits. (If you don’t like yours- it’s no problem to change it. This is going into posterity so we might as well get it right!!!!)
Then it occurred to me that I could ‘merge’ the columns at the beginning and everyone could give me a short resumé of what we’ve all been up to in the last 60 years. We could maybe have a wee debate about this - how many words and what the content should be. We could leave it up to each of us to write in the kind of vein we wish. Or we could lay down a few suggested ground rules - family, career, achievements etc. Given that this will be perused by archivists in 2120 (believe me!) I don’t think we should be too ‘umble and retiring'. We’re really rather a remarkable bunch of women. I would sock it to ‘em.
I’ve made a few changes as directed by Word’s ’speller’ and 'grammar’ check (when these emails were written no one dreamt that they might one day end up in the archives), and tried to sort out the layout.
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