Avro Heritage Museum, Woodford, Cheshire (March-September 2026) Part 8

My near-disaster at the Science Museum was averted. My reading glasses were sitting in the car’s glove compartment as expected. On the walk back, the weather had changed dramatically, turning the edges of my umbrella inside out.

            I returned to find the archivist waiting for me in the gallery. She led me down a stone staircase and into the basement where the archive room is situated. The air was warm. The air conditioner had been out of order for some time, she told me.

We came through a set of glass doors and entered a foyer with a bank of lockers against a wall.

            After putting my bag inside the locker, I was shown to the research room. Sheets of A4 paper were waiting on my table for me to read and sign. There was an extra sheet for me to list the artefacts I intended to photograph or copy.

            There were three fellow researchers in the room, along with an assistant. They were already at work photographing every slip of paper in their boxes. The shutter on the Canon camera of the man sitting at the table facing me was never quiet for more than a few seconds.

            When the archivist wheeled my trolley over to me, I noticed the size of the boxes and took a sharp breath. I was already forty-five minutes behind. How was I going to read through the boxes in only two hours? I took out my phone and opened the camera. When in Rome, I thought.

I began taking photographs of photographs; the irony didn’t go unnoticed. Photographs of the young Roy Chadwick and a man I presumed to be his father were among my favourites.

            There were many letters congratulating Roy Chadwick on being honoured with a CBE, which had been announced in King George VI’s Birthday Honours list. He was being recognised for his achievements with the Lancaster Bomber.

The young Roy Chadwick

            I continued taking photograph after photograph of the letters, fighting back the urge to pause and read them all, to listen to the voices, to allow myself to fall through the vortex into that world. 1943, when World War Two was still being fought. There was something surreal about the voices, I thought. The panic I had imagined and was half-expecting was absent — life was calm, the King’s birthday being celebrated publicly.

The sound of the Canon camera shutter wheezed across the table. Like me, the researcher was also photographing photographs. His were of Manchester’s music and popular culture scenes.

“Debby,” I said, above a whisper.

The archivist rose from her chair and came over.

“Is it possible for me to extend my time into the afternoon?” I asked.

She looked at me, eyes bright with kindness. “Yes,” she said. “There’s no one else booked in for the day. You’re more than welcome to return after the lunch break,” she said.

I thanked her, and a few minutes later she announced that there were only fifteen minutes remaining before lunch. The camera wheezed and clicked ferociously as the minutes faded.

I came up from the basement into a flash of sunlight streaming through the glass walls. The gallery floor was crowded with visitors strolling over the concrete floor.

Outside, there was no trace of the rain that had fallen. The heat had grown intense. I checked the temperature on my phone: 29 degrees Celsius. I crossed over the road, away from the museum’s café, my mind heavy with the past.