Although we have absolutely no idea about Scottish literature, our feet find the absolutely unplanned way to the Writer's Museum. I read something about it weeks ago, but when we suddenly found ourselves in front of it, I was drawn in. Meanwhile, Gerd enjoyed the shade in the beautiful courtyard of the old Lady Stair's House.
In the multi-storey and really small museum, which impressively documents the lives of the three writers Robert Burns , Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson, I don't really learn anything about literature. I sit down in one of the armchairs and listen to the other visitors tell their children or partners which books they have read and when, what they thought of them and why they prefer one author or another.
I sink into the sound of Scottish English and don't want to tear myself away until I remember that Gerd is waiting outside.
One more floor, the attic, then I want to join him. Up here I come across "my trade", a printing press and many typesetting boxes. A young woman stands next to me and asks me what exactly happens here. Why people didn't write with a pen in the past, she says, because this setting of lead letters destroys creativity.
I try to explain to her how the setting of the texts works "in old", why the letters have to be held in frames, what text corrections meant back then and what a proof is.
Aha, this "I'll never need that!" knowledge from the long ago training was also useful. The young woman smiles and says thank you, so she had never seen that before and had never thought about how books were printed in the past.
She leaves the attic, I stand dreamily for a few more minutes and ask myself if I really ended up here by chance.
#WritersMuseum #Edinburgh @hiddenscotland
Merci for "travelling with us
We are thinking about taking another break from travelling in the summer and visiting our families in Germany and Switzerland. One of the ideas is to organise a Lecture about our long journey to the Persian Gulf to prepare. If you would like to, what would interest you the most? We will also tell stories here that don't find a place here on the blog. We're thinking of the Bern and Berlin area - simply because we have family there. But other places are also conceivable. Feel free to write to us.
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The pictures with the typesetting boxes remind me very much of my training as a typesetter almost 50 years ago.