The Scots Thistle

This morning I had an appointment at the National Library.  I took with me my copies of The Scots Thistle (see extra) which was an amateur manuscript magazine founded in 1885 by my Great Grandmother, EP. EP was the granddaughter of Christina Colville, wife of RTP and the monther of DHM(P). The magazine ran, I believe, until 2010 and the National Library has quite a few copies, a private donation, of which I was able to see a few today. I need to make another appointment to look at the full collection.  My copies of the magazine are a precious family inheritance but in due course I might well give them to the library too. The Scots Thistle is a sort of forerunner of Blip in that it was run by and for its membership and there was gentle critique of the stories, poems and factual accounts which the writers produced. Contributors also had noms de plume, a bit like Blip too. EP was ‘Bog Myrtle’.

This is  my entry for #IWD ‘Women at Work’. My Blip is of Sally, one of the specialist manuscript librarians at the National Library. She very kindly agreed to my taking her photograph today. I was so grateful for her time and of her colleague Ian too. I shall be back to look at all the information  held about the Scots Thistle.

The blip is also to honour EP’s work. All those capable women of the 19th and early 20th centuries ... I’ve written about EP in relation to others; as a granddaughter, a wife and a mother but of course she was a person in her own right and clearly a talented and determined one.  I wish I'd known her.