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3. Help from Heather


December 2016

There’s a message on my answerphone from a Heather Warne about my Collier queries.  Would I like to call her back?

It seems that the Collier archive of more than 3000 letters (a number of which Charles Lane Sayer published in 1906 and some 600 of which have recently been annotated and published by Dr Richard Saville) were comprehensively catalogued by Heather Matthews as she was then, as her dissertation for an Archive Diploma in 1966.

A Google search reveals:
 ‘Heather Warne came to Sussex in 1965 to take up her first job as an archivist at East Sussex Record Office. Since raising her family, she has worked on various archive contracts elsewhere in Sussex and in London and Surrey. Her current post is as (part time) archivist at Arundel Castle where she specialises in cataloguing and making available the extensive mediaeval records that are held there.’
But there are no contact details. So I fire off emails to the ESRO and to Arundel Castle with my phone number. And she’s got back to me.

After a couple of attempts I manage to speak to her. She’s absolutely charming and a helpful as can be but, sadly, remembers very little about the project.  It was, she reminds me, over half a century ago!  But where is her dissertation and how do I get hold of a copy?

“Well, I think the East Sussex Record Office at the Keep in Falmer may have a carbon copy.  Of course it was all typed up in those days.  In fact it was my mother who did the typing to help me out. Sorry I can’t be more helpful.”


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