Benjamin Britten gets a walk-on role, as a vice-president of the Asian Music Circle; we get to hear a bit of Ustad Vilayat Khan at the 1958 Aldeburgh Festival, a recording I had no idea existed. More on Britten, Pears and the Asian Music Circle here: www.brittenpearsarts.org/news/archive...

Also aware, of course, as all my professional colleagues will be, that somewhere the ghost of Sir Hilary Jenkinson is wailing at us "The archivist should not be a historian! Discuss!"

(Reminded of a scrapbook I wrote about on the old Wellcome Library blog, where a C19 doctor had kept lots of "match-reports" of fox-hunting; each one potentially a chapter from Trollope.)
wayback.archive-it.org/16107/202103...

It's a real social shift, isn't it? All sorts of drivers, I suppose: the Internet meaning you can locate and book on eg Air BnB rather than relying on showing up in a town centre needing something visible; the growth of the motel sector (Premier Inns seem to proliferate), etc.

*Jimmy* Swan; apologies to the ghost of Neil Munro.

Interesting, I didn't know that about the law; hotels functioning as common rooms for professions that bring people in and out of a town, where now we might have an institutional canteen. (Yes, the Commercial Room is where the travellers would meet up.)

I saw him do it on stage in the late 80s as part of his one-man show "Acting Shakespeare"; electrifying. (IIRC it was a benefit for London Lighthouse centre for people with AIDS.) One of those theatrical moments that stick with you decades on.

Agreed, it strikes a good balance between the two, doesn't it?