I have been undertaking research for further stories, with a view to embarking on more copper plate aquatints next week. The horse bridle donated by Dominic Gordon led me to think back to a lecture I attended by Janet Berry from the Local History Archive. She spoke about how the introduction of horse drawn trams that went into the city, proved to be a turning point for women in the area, as they could safely travel to jobs in Birmingham. She has sent me one photograph to start with and a quote from her talk, but I need to find out more.
"Women passengers were indeed fewer than men, but still frequent passengers, though more likely to sit downstairs where smoking was banned. Women’s voluminous skirts hampered them climbing to the top deck, but ‘decency panels’ protected them once there. Trams, then, were ‘symbols of emancipation’ and ‘helped ‘shape a new female presence in the public environment’, giving some Moseley women a freedom they had not enjoyed before."
Ken Watson's story about his mother who was a night sister at Moseley Hall Hospital (see post on http://moseleystories.blogspot.co.uk/) is very promising. I am hoping Ken will manage to find a photo of his Mum, but in the meantime I've been sourcing other images for a potential print.
Ken told me that his car was the Ford Anglia before the classic model with the slopped back window, so I am hoping this is the correct one.
I have also been looking at nurses' uniforms from the period. From what I
can see a sister's uniform did not vary that much. In the picture
below, I believe the nurse on the left is a sister.
I found the advert below, which depicts Moseley Hall as a Children's Hospital at the beginning of the 20th century. Most of the buildings which now surround the old hall now are post 1960s. From Ken's description of the large trees that were in the grounds, I don't think the Hospital would have altered much during the first half of the century.
I went to Moseley Hall Hospital to take some photos of the frontage, which is still very much as it was back in the 1960's.
As the story takes place in the late evening, I went back to photograph the hall later on. Unfortunately the original building does not appear to be used much in the evening, so only one light was on, but it did give me an idea of what the illumination of the building in the evening would have looked like.
I also took some shots of my daughter in the pose I would like for the figure of the Night Sister as she turns to wave goodbye.
I have been looking again at Paula Rego's etchings, this time to see how she dealt with night scenes. 'Secrets and Stories' and 'Encampment' both show the way she uses the tonal range of aquatint to depict the sharp contrasts and subtler grades of twilight illuminated by lamps or camp fire.
Recently I have been looking at the work of Eric Ravilious, particularly the lithographs he produced when working as a war artist for the Royal Navy. The set of prints he produced of submarine crew show a wonderful portrayal of pools of light within the confined space of the cabins, such as 'Diving Controls 1' below.
I produced a collage of the images I have sourced for the print of 'Night Sister' to get the composition right. I then traced the image using a range of tones, so that I could work out the layers of aquatint and achieved the desired effect of a night time scene.
