Report from the chair (May 2024)

Dear all, and welcome to our May newsletter.

Two of our friends at Manchester Metropolitan University Library (MMU Library) came for a visit to the archive to see exactly what we do and why we do it. From talking to them and reading their comments in the visitors’ book afterwards I believe they were suitably impressed with what they saw and our links have been firmly strengthened by their visit.

To reinforce this we were contacted a couple of weeks later by someone with a donation of magazines; he had been put onto us by the MMU Library. The donor delivered five boxes of magazines to the archive and we gave him the “shilling” tour. He went away knowing that the magazines had gone to a good home. On looking into the boxes at our next coffee break (well, who could resist for longer than that to have a peek in the boxes) we saw a lovely run of 1950s and 1960s photography magazines together with an eclectic mixture of automotive titles from the same period. Indeed the mix ran from exotics like “Model Cars”, “Car” and “Sports Car Graphic” through to the more mainstream “Autocar” and “Motor”. There was even a 1964 issue of “Paris Match” thrown in for good measure. These are all full of fabulous and iconic advertising and are just waiting to be added to the collection.

It was a very pleasant surprise to receive a visit from our volunteer Dickie Grenfell who although now living in Scotland still very much supports the archive. Dickie had picked up a second batch of magazines from a donor in Scotland and brought them to the archive via Lancaster where he picked up a collection of bus magazines and books. Dickie had also recently been on a visit to Munich and brought back a lovely selection of beer mats and beer glasses to add to the collection. It was great seeing Dickie again and I am looking forward to his next visit when hopefully he will be able to stay longer with us.

We have now officially used the Austin Seven Ruby to promote the archive when it was taken to the Gawsworth Classic Car Show as part of the contingent from the Manchester Historic Vehicle Club. Craig Horner and I drove the car to and from the event and a full description of our day can be here written by Craig.

We held our May open evening on a lovely sunny evening and a good time was had by those attending. Now that my new kitchen is in place and I again have access to an oven it was back to the customary home-baked lemon drizzle cake.

Until our next open evening and newsletter have a great time and enjoy life to the full.

 Richard Roberts and the team at the Richard Roberts Archive

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Collection Statistics

The Richard Roberts Archive collection statistics
Tuesday 20th May 2024

Collection database                          

Total items                                           159,036
- of which Magazines                        135,049

Product folders

Total folders                                          163
- circa number of adverts                 20,276                            
                             
Breweriana  
Total folders                        377     
Beermats                                                 22,549

Transport photograph database

Total items                                                   883   

Volunteer hours

Total                                           71,402
- of which this month                         499