Tag Archives: Gandhi

Volunteering at the Ronald Duncan Collection

University of Exeter Special Collections is lucky to have a number of enthusiastic and dedicated volunteers. In this blog post our Volunteer Rhiannon McLoughlin talks about her experiences volunteering with the Ronald Duncan Collection.

When I say I work in a library people often respond with “Oh do you like reading?” Whilst I do like reading this doesn’t tend to be part of the job description! However, my time volunteering at Exeter University Special Collections during 2017 in order to gain some insight into the differences between library and archive work did, I am happy to report, involve a lot of reading.

When I found I was to work alongside Project Archivist Caroline Walter on the Ronald Duncan Collection I was intrigued as he is not an author I had come across before. Caroline kindly loaned me the first volume of his autobiography and I enjoyed getting to know this colourful character alongside the work.

I started out cataloguing the Ronald Duncan book collection. Cataloguing books for an archive is a far slower process than the new library books I normally deal with but can be much more fascinating. I found myself leafing through items looking for anything that made them singular – notes, dedications, markings, edition numbers, or inserts of letters, press cuttings, even a risqué postcard!

I was impressed by the wide variety of writings Duncan produced. Writer, poet, playwright, librettist and editor the collection shows his interests lay in many directions. As a Devonian I particularly enjoyed the local connection and could not help but stop occasionally to read bits and pieces about North Devon life. Whilst his former home and rented buildings may look idyllic now it sounded a far more hardy existence then in wartime and winter months. The tales of pouncing on items washed up on the beach particularly made me chuckle whilst his “Guide to housebuilding and smallholdings” and volume on tobacco farming demonstrated his determination to turn his hand to self-sufficiency.

The book collection contains not only his own writing career but writings and responses by others to his work- from letters in journals to student theses about him. There are works in progress, annotated books, proof copies and newsletters pieced together. There are a large number of different literary journals he contributed to and programmes for his plays. There are anthologies where his verse was included – “The site: choose a dry site…” seems a particularly popular choice. There are also items translated into other languages including Polish and Turkish and of course various musical scores and items relating to his work with Benjamin Britten.

I found some of Ronald Duncan’s self-published items by his own Rebel Press to be of especial interest. These are often short limited edition runs such as the volume “Auschwitz” with sobering illustrations and a volume of poems by Virginia Maskell under a pseudonym [Leaves of Silence by Simon Orme].

The book collection indicates the important relationships in Ronald Duncan’s life. Most copies of his own work are signed by him and many are also signed “desk copy” so were clearly his own personal copies – one amusingly “if anywhere else it was stolen”! But many of his books are variously inscribed to friends and family – including a multitude to his wife Rose Marie – usually loving inscriptions but some hinting at more challenging times in their relationship. A particular marker of his friendship with Gandhi are gifts of tiny books of silvery woody paper with Gandhi’s writings – one complete with woodworm holes spiralling throughout.

Once I had finished cataloguing the book collection I began to read through some of Rose Marie’s diaries in preparation for digitisation and also to sort photographs into archival wallets. Rose Marie’s diaries are written in a lively and readable style and give a real sense of the challenges of their North Devon lifestyle (including having the band Deep Purple stay in their rental property) and provide a further window onto Ronald Duncan’s work. Repackaging photographs offered pictures of their life I had been getting to know through words – family members, the house, the coast and their beloved horses.

I volunteered to get experience of archival work but found myself equally glad to have gained experience of Ronald Duncan. Working on this collection I got drawn in by the writing and whilst I found myself often having to record that there were signs of damp in the condition note of the books I rather liked the sense that gave of somebody working away at the edge of the sea in his little writer’s hut.

‘The past is a wastepaper basket’ – An Introduction to the Ronald Duncan Collection

Part of the Ronald Duncan Collection

Hello Readers!

2017 is shaping up to be an exciting year for the University of Exeter Special Collections Team. We have two interesting projects taking place, thanks to generous funding and we’re taking to social media to keep you all up to date on them. You can read my colleague Annie’s introduction to the Syon Abbey cataloguing project here.

I’m lucky enough to be working as Project Archivist on the Ronald Duncan Collection as part of an 18-month project to catalogue and improve access to this fascinating collection. You can follow the progress of the project through this blog and also through @UoEHeritageColl on twitter.

The archive was permanently acquired from the Ronald Duncan Literary Foundation in 2012, having previously been on loan for a number of years, and the foundation has now generously funded this project to ensure that the collection is accessible for future researchers. In addition to being a full resource on the life of a West Country writer, the archive is a treasure trove of material on literary, musical and stage culture from the 1930’s. Its contents include material relating to many notable figures of the day, including: Gandhi, Ezra Pound, T.S. Elliot, Jacob Epstein and George Devine. It covers topics ranging from Politics to Self-Sufficiency, and also holds material relating to Rose Marie Duncan (nee Hansom), Ronald Duncan’s wife and a talented artist in her own right.

In his first Autobiography ‘All Men Are Islands’ (1964) Duncan writes:

‘When the present is interesting we do not bother with the past. We try to remember only when we’ve lost the vitality of doing anything worth remembering. The past is a wastepaper basket. We burrow into it only when we feel we have no future.’

Well, no offence to Duncan, but I disagree. I find the past every bit as exciting as the present and I hope that you will continue to join me as I delve into Ronald Duncan’s ‘wastepaper basket’

 

A short biography of Ronald Frederick Henry Duncan (6 August 1914 – 3 June 1982)

Ronald Duncan as a child

Born in 1914 in Salisbury, Rhodesia (now Harare, Zimbabwe), Duncan spent his early life in London before reading English at Cambridge under F.R. Leavis. An interest in pacifism led him to write the manifesto for the Peace Pledge Union and sparked an invitation to visit Gandhi at his Wardha Ashram in 1937. Later settling in Devon, Duncan ran a community farm at West Mill, Bideford during WWII and entertained notable figures of the day; including Benjamin Britten, Virginia Maskell, and Lord Harewood. His work on the Exeter Taw and Torridge Festival led to the establishment of the Royal Court Theatre in 1956.

Duncan’s career spanned stage and screen, with over 25 plays to his name, including ‘Abelard and Heloise’, ‘This Way to the Tomb’ and ‘Don Juan’. In 1968 Duncan scripted Jack Cardiff’s ‘Girl on a Motorcycle and in 1969 the BBC Drama Workshop released a ground-breaking vinyl record ‘The Seasons’, setting Duncan’s poems to music by David Cain. Though largely ignored at the time, this recording achieved cult status in the 1990’s and was reissued in 2012. He also had a prolific literary career, publishing several volumes of poetry and short stories in addition to three rather controversial autobiographies and a five-part epic scientific poem entitled ‘Man’. He is however, perhaps best known for the libretto in Benjamin Britten’s ‘Rape of Lucretia’ and for his poem ‘The Horse’, written for the National Horse Show.

In 1941 Duncan married Rose Marie Hansom, a talented illustrator, and the couple had two children. Duncan died in 1982, age 68, leaving a fascinating archive and the Ronald Duncan Literary Foundation (set up during his lifetime) as his lasting legacy.

More information on Ronald Duncan and his works can be found on the website of the Ronald Duncan Literary Foundation here

For more about the University of Exeter Heritage Collections click here, and to search the current list of the Ronald Duncan Archive click here