A Day In The People’s Friend Archive
Digital Editor, Jacky, recently spent a day exploring The People’s Friend archive. Read about what she found and how we work with the amazing archive team!
Last week, I headed up to our archive building to properly meet the team there and nosy at The People’s Friend archive collection. To picture it, you only have to imagine a kid at Christmas.
I’d been to the archive once before when I first started at DC Thomson five years ago for my induction. I’ve been dying to go back ever since!
There I met Barry and David, our archive heroes and regular experts on the Reading Between The Lines podcast. If you didn’t catch it at the time, you can watch Barry and I chat IN PERSON from the archive office.
Part of my role at “the Friend” will be diving into our collection of stories and finding gems to discuss on our podcast. And I can not wait to get stuck into it! The history seeped into those millions of pages is nothing short of magical. My eyes especially lit up at some of the leather-bound books holding issues of the magazine – red with gold foiling on the front. Kicking myself for not taking a photo… but next time.
Inside The People’s Friend Archive
Something I wasn’t expecting to see was also the collection of old covermounts, merchandise and products we have, too. Barry delighted in asking me to guess what this covermount, pictured below, could possibly be. I also extended the task to readers on Facebook and, suffice to say, none of us could get it!
It is, in fact, a salad slicer. The more you know.
Another favourite of mine were these simply gorgeous covers of Annie S. Swan annuals from the 1920s-50s. I’d hang them straight up on my wall! We’ve also just released a brand new Classics Collection book from Annie S. Swan: A Maid of the Isles.
I’m sure you’ll be seeing a lot more of my discoveries from the treasure trove that is The People’s Friend archive. Especially the stories from years gone by that we’ll be discussing in upcoming series of our Reading Between The Lines podcast.
