I have become a supreme tuber! Not the vegetable kind or the musical instrument either but a master of the underground or the tube. What a fabulous system – Australia has nothing like it. I love that I can get to most parts of London within such a short space of time and with realitve ease, although the number of people does still over whelm me at times. Must have something to do with personal space – something us Aussies (especially WA ones) need a lot of!
Made my first trip to the British Library today to start my Vauxhall Gardens research. What an amazing place. I spent 5 hours reading through the Jacob Burn collection of documents dating from 1646 through to 1859. I can’t believe they actually let you touch them. Again I think it is an Aussie thing – we don’t have that many old things and we certainly don’t have written records that span such a gulf of time. I love London!
So what did I discover today; my focus has been to see what evidence (if any) there is to explain how the social classes mixed at this prominent pleasure garden, as most popular culture events were either exclusively for one class or another, even if different classes did attend an event together – like going to the the theatre – they were separated. So how and why? I am already suspecting that it won’t be what’s recorded but rather what’s not recorded – the omissions that will give clues to class interaction. So how can I read omissions? Mmmmm. Something to ponder.