45. A Year in the Life of Elizabeth Gaskell’s House
Posted
14th September 2025
in 10 year Anniversary, blog, Blogs & News, Gaskell House Blogs
8-14 September 2025
The weeks feel like they are galloping on faster than I can keep up at the moment , although I was reminded by one of the volunteers that my year in the life series will be ended soon – only a few more blogs to go before I will have covered our anniversary year completely.
Back to this week. I spent Monday working through the new bookplates (supplied by volunteers Jane M and Diana) and compiling the report which details all the books, the repairs, sponsors and the all important before and after photos. Its a rare opportunity for me to take a deep dive into our collection. My current favourite is volume II and III of Howitt’s Journal which was repaired and is currently on display as part of our current exhibition. It includes two short stories written by Elizabeth under the pseudonym Cotton Mather Mills, which were written before Mary Barton. One of the short stories – The Sexton’s Hero – is a personal favourite because it’s set in Morecambe Bay, one of my favourite places to go, and the other Christmas Storms and Sunshines is a funny and quite random Christmas story involving sausages, a baby and a cat! (what’s not to like!)
Anyway I sent the report about the books to our sponsors and they have been invited to visit during October. This report will also be shared with theBboard and our friends in the next few months. I’ll also be posting some of the before and after photos on our social media accounts when I get the chance.
The other big job this week was working on the final outstanding parts of the writers residency project, which include a schools workshop, publishing a book of the work of the writings, producing a legacy film of the project, continuing the promote the exhibition before it ends in November and, last but not least, working on a plan for what happens next to the exhibition (hopefully it will be going to another Manchester library). All this consumed the rest of Monday and Tuesday along with some meetings with our film production company and Fido PR.
Keeping with the ‘I’ve Never read Elizabeth Gaskell’ theme, Fido PR have come up with a great idea to offer a mystery Elizabeth Gaskell book to visitors for an additional £5 during the Manchester Literature Festival. Gaby and I had fun on Thursday wrapping books and taking photos for the press release. Watch this space for more information.
Visitor-wise it was a very quiet week and as always happens we had plenty of volunteers including some new volunteers who we started training on Thursday and Sunday. Katy was having a well-deserved week of annual leave so Ellie duty-managed the team on Wednesday.
I was out of the House on Wednesday afternoon at the Marketing Manchester partner meeting at the Treehouse Hotel, where Elizabeth Gaskell’s House was name checked as a good example in terms of accessibility and training for staff/volunteers by one of the speakers. (Gold star for us!)
On Thursday evening Gaby and I attended the launch of From Page to Stage Photo exhibition at Manchester Central Library which celebrates the 20 years of Manchester Literature Festival. It was good to catch up and meet lots of people.
Friday was mainly spent trying to stay focused on writing a grant application…
Sunday was my Duty Manager shift and also our monthly second hand book-sale, which resulted in it being lovely and busy . We have been having a big effort to sort our stock and get rid of books that we’ve had hanging around for a long time. Lots of our volunteers have been taking bags of books to their local charity shops and we’ve passed on well over 100 to our local book/food bank. In tandem we are also trying to get them better organised, so volunteers Liz and Mike made further progress on this on Sunday as well. Hopefully this will make the experience better for visitors and encourage more book purchases. Who knows one day we might even get them alphabetically ordered!
Sally Jastrzebski-Lloyd
