Items charting Fife’s history are being meticulously unearthed and catalogued after being locked away at a giant storage facility for years.
Curators are working through more than 80,000 items from Fife Council’s Museums Collections.
The items – mostly donated by Fifers over the last century – were transferred to the former Amazon warehouse in the town five years ago.
Staff from the cultural charity OnFife are now working through the collection, thoroughly researching and cataloguing each item.
Hidden gems
It’s the first time many of the items, which includes 1,000 works of art, have been looked at since they were moved to their new home in 2017.
The Kingdom’s industrial, mining and maritime heritage is charted through the items, which tell the history of Fife and its people.
Items include a time clock that ensured workforce punctuality at Nairn’s linoleum factory in Kirkcaldy, linen and silk sample books produced by Dunfermline cloth manufacturers; and a pair of National Coal Board wellington boots, still with traces of coal dust.
Household gadgets include a 1904 hand crank Singer sewing machine, bought in Dunfermline, and a 1920s gramophone purchased in Cowdenbeath.
Staff also shared pictures of a 1950s Bakelite TV, complete with nine-inch screen and 49 Guineas price tag – equivalent to over £1,600 in today’s money, taking inflation into account.
Over 1,100 items from the collection have now been catalogued 18-months into the mammoth task, and curators continue to expertly comb through the items.
Collections curator Jane Freel said: “The condition of each has been checked and recorded and its ID number matched to its documentation record.
“A detailed description of each artefact is recorded digitally, along with a record of its precise location, so items can be easily found if needed by a curator or visiting researcher.”
The project has allowed historians from the charity to gain fresh insight into people and objects that little was previously known about.
Once such example is a trunk used during the Second World War by a Captain D Drysdale.
Support assistant Susan Goodfellow said: “We now know much more about David Drysdale.
Fifer’s lives ‘honoured’
“We have details of his military service, his career in banking, his involvement in many local organisations, his service as Honorary Sherriff Substitute for Fife and as a Justice of Peace.
“These important details are now recorded on our catalogue. That’s such a vital part of the work we are doing because behind every item lies a human story.
“We are honouring people’s lives as much as the objects they left behind.”
Anyone wishing to view a particular item is asked to email OnFife.
Conversation