32. A Year in the Life of Elizabeth Gaskell’s House
Posted
6th June 2025
in 10 year Anniversary, blog, Blogs & News, Gaskell House Blogs
2-6 June 2025
First day back from a weeks leave and I had to ignore the 100+ emails and head to Manchester Central Library on Monday morning for the installation of our new exhibition – I’ve Never Read Elizabeth Gaskell. Monday morning was a mix of anxiety, stress, relief and pride. I was a jumble of words and exhaustion by 1pm after spending an hour in the library loading bay constructing the plinths and dragging them on to the library floor.
Despite three checks, the exhibition was initially delivered to the wrong address, and when it did arrive there was no velcro to fix the plinths – then there was discussions about the location BUT finally it was sorted and we are now installed next to the cafe on the ground-floor. Thank you to Darren and Dorothy at Manchester Libraries and Rachel from City of Literature for the moral and emotional support.
Whilst I was doing this, Ellie was back at the House welcoming a private group tour and Katy was in a different part of the library at a volunteer week event with three of our volunteers – Liz, Duncan and Kaia. There was a lot to juggle!
On Tuesday I caught up with my emails and admin – which including getting first views of three short films that have been made by Unity House to help promote the writers residency – one of which I’ve included below. I spent quite a bit of time on Wednesday uploading the films to YouTube and Bloomberg, and adding captions subtitles! These will go out with our press release next week and we will be sharing on social media in the coming weeks.
On Thursday afternoon we held a session with some our trustees and colleagues from Museum Development to do an ‘organisational health check’ as part of the first steps in working towards a new business plan. Thursday evening was another of those everything happens at once evenings. Katy and Gaby hosted our annual volunteer week party for our volunteers – with the all important quiz; whilst I had headed into the city centre for two events. For first was the launch of Manchester City of Literatures Festival of Libraries, where I met up with one of our writers in residence, Georgia, and Steve, the Director of the writing Squad who has been an integral partner in the project. Showed them both the exhibition (big smiles all round!) and took more photos. I then hot-footed it over to the Portico Library for the launch of opening of The Songs the Morning Sang – which features photography by Andrew Brooks* and poetry from Ian McMillian.
Andrew will be coming to Elizabeth Gaskell’s House in late July to capture some photography of the exhibition in situ at the House so was good to have a quick catch-up. Met up with a few other people that prompted a few more ideas we could develop with the residency and then followed up on Friday.
Visitor wise this week, the weather worked in our favour (it rained!) and so we had one of the best weeks we’ve had for quite a while and the Tea Room was regularly full with good cake sales! Our online event this week – Redemption through Divine Motherhood in Ruth- Religion in Victorian Literature – also had a good turnout – with lots of last minute bookings coming through.
Sally Jastrzebski-Lloyd
