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| 2017.0066 [WALL CALENDARS] |
| Date Range of Records: |
1992-2010 |
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This series comprises 17 wall calendars, all about 61 x 91cm, from Germaine Greer’s office. The earliest calendar is from 1992, the most recent is 2010. The calendars for 1993 and 1998 are missing. These calendars were critical working documents for Greer and her personal assistant Carol Horne. Horne worked for Greer from 1992 until 2010.
The calendars are stunning visual maps of the intricacies of the life of a writer, speaker, academic, expatriate, pet lover and home owner in her 60s and 70s. They are also a map of Horne’s work as an administrator, a maker of schedules, a keeper of files and a creator of hundreds of little white labels. Horne stuck three or even four such labels to some of Greer’s days. She typed appointment information in the tiniest of Times New Roman fonts and the bits of paper flutter still, a ticker tape parade of interviews, lectures, copy deadlines, book promotion, dog grooming, haircuts, holidays and many, many parties.
23 May 1999: 7.30am Breakfast with Frost; brunch with Rana Kabbani and family; p.m. LWT for Channel 4/NATO on trial; 7.30pm benefit at the Hackney Empire GG to appear c. 9.30.
12 July 1999: Sky installation; Telegraph copy; 2pm Britten Sinfonia meeting/Cambridge; 8.30-9.30pm CNN interview/JJ Niven.
21 October 1999: Warwick 11.30am-1.30pm SS seminar; 3-5pm Women’s Lit; 6.30-8.30 Cocktails/New Yorker/WC2; 6.30-8.30 YCTV Party W10.
Neon orange dots, blue stars, red squares and bands of colour are some of the visual codes the demarcate various types of activities (speaking, opera, TV and radio work) or blocks of work (teaching terms or work-related travel).
The 1992 calendar has a print of Claude Monet’s The Poppy Field on the back and either Greer or Horne has written appointments on various days in black felt tip. Many appointments have been erased either intentionally or by the passage of time.
The left-hand side of the 1992 calendar is marked with a key to types of events: red triangle for opera; red square for governing body; speaking engagements are indicated by a red star; teaching is a yellow square; TV/radio a green square; and appointments are a blue square.
On other calendars the codes are more oblique. Where evident, the archivist has described the purpose of various colour codes in the descriptive metadata for each item. For instance, in the 1994 calendar, green and blue strips indicate teaching time, blue squares indicate when Greer's newspaper copy is due, red squares denote speaking engagements and an orange strip indicates a holiday. There is one orange strip for the year; the five days Greer spent in France in April.
The archivist has assigned up to a dozen subject headings to each wall calendar but these are merely indicative of the depth and diversity of the activities and people captured in these records. For 1999, for example, the headings are: Melvyn Bragg; Haircuts; The Daily Telegraph; Country Notebook (The Telegraph); Phil Wilmott; Tom Morris; Pets; BBC Late Review (TV series 1994-); Lysistrata; Britten Sinfonia; Aphra Behn; John Moore.
For many years in the period documented by the calendars, Greer’s schedule had to work around teaching commitments at University of Warwick and University of Cambridge. Greer has also noted when her household staff were on holiday. In 2006, for example, notes highlighted in orange report 'David on holiday' and 'John not available' and 'Carol [Horne] on holiday'.
A small label attached to 31 December 2006 reads ‘Shakespeare's Wife 110,000-120,000 words delivered, ready for press’.
The calendars have received conservation treatment at the Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation. The treatment allowed the calendars to be digitised; for preservation and for access purposes. They are too fragile to be handled by researchers.
Five of the calendars had been affected by water damage, causing mould and mould stains. The calendars have all been brush-vacuumed to remove any mould spores. The calendars were then placed beneath felts for about a month to encourage them to return to an even plane.
Each calendar was then carefully examined and any lifted pieces of paper (Carol’s notes) were secured using double-sided tape, cut to an appropriate size. Pieces of paper were not secured if doing so meant that they obscured information on paper beneath. |
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| 1 unit (1.43m) |
| Collection Category: |
Culture and the Arts, individuals |
| Access Conditions: |
Access: Restricted |
| Finding Aids: |
Yes listed ONLINE |
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