I have a tendency to shudder at the mere thought of advertising. The idea of television programmes which tantalisingly countdown the top 100 adverts fill me with dread, on many levels. Can something so inherently awful ever be beautiful? Of course, it turns out that the answer is yes.

Until now this blog has focused exclusively on items from the Bartholomew Archive Printing Record. Yet the Printing Record is merely one component of this impressive and extensive Archive. Departing from the norm, this entry is dedicated to some of the beautiful, and dare I say it charming, advertising from the Bartholomew Archive Business Record.

This is perhaps the quintessential Bartholomew advert. It dates from the late 1920's into the 1930's. It manages to capture something of the excitement and freedom that newly available automobiles offered. Who knows what lay over yonder hill, who can tell the wondrousness just encountered in the valley behind? Of course, the answer is anyone with a Bartholomew map! At this time there is a real explosion in the number of maps Bartholomew were explicitly aiming at this market. It is an extension of the contacts which they had long since forged with groups such as the Cyclist's Touring Club or the Caledonian Railway, producing maps of cycling or railway routes and lines. Now however, the clients included the A.A., the R.A.C. and the Royal Scottish Automobile Club.

Images such as these typify this period in time. Any episode of Poirot or Miss Marple worth their salt would have images such as these discreetly in the background, conjuring up a sense of a bygone era. They are somehow familiar, comforting and satisfyingly traditional - qualities Bartholomew would have been eager to convey. Yet they are also, surprisingly, in the minority of the advertising material in the Archive which in fact shows a tendency towards the unusual, the modern and the vaguely dangerous.

Photography is perhaps not the first medium which springs to mind when imagining 1930's advertising, yet here's Bartholomew experimenting in just this way.

And this is just what they are, experiments. No evidence (so far) exists which proves that Bartholomew pursued these images, of which there are a total of five. There is a narrative here, a mystery. Who are they? Where are they? What are they doing? They intrigue and beguile, surely everything an advert at its best ought to do? They mark a stark departure from the bucolic connotations of the watercolours. Perhaps too stark of a departure for an essentially conservative, gentile and traditional firm.

But contradicting that are a set of images which Bartholomew did print, albeit in a very small quantity. A set of four photographs, similar in style to the one above were printed in 1935. A mere 150 copies were printed demonstrating a tentative reticence, a testing of the water perhaps. This does not appear to be a style that they pursued with much vigour or conviction.

As well as printed copies of advertising, the Business Record also contains proofs and drafts, such as above. The route from original sketch to finished product is sometimes possible to reconstruct. Just who the artists were remains a total mystery. Signatures appear on some, others are anonymous. The name most often encountered is J. G. Rennie, but just who this is, I do not know. Records from the Business Archive detailing advertising matters are rare, very rare, indicating two possibilities. Firstly, that they haven't survived, secondly, that there was a certain embarrassment, a cloak-and-dagger nature to these dirty dealings. My money's on the second. Bartholomew did not even have a dedicated marketing team until the 1970's.

For all of their charm, inherent beauty, social relevance, the thing that I love most of all is the women. Women in this make believe Bartholomew world are dominating the skill of map reading. This is a small but interesting detail. Historically, companies including the venerable Ordnance Survey, tended to show women as peripheral by standers in a world where men did the map thing. So, if only for this fact alone, here's a cheer for Bartholomew!

Interesting though today's subject might be in this instance interesting is also a euphemism for "help, I haven't got a clue!". Bartholomew were unquestionably pioneers in their field, experimenting with colour, technique and design but what they achieved in these images is well beyond my expertise.

This is a sheet of eight, incredibly beautiful views, based on photographs taken by leading Scottish photographers. 2020 sheets were printed by Bartholomew on the 6th June 1882 although unhelpfully there is little else to go on in the Archive. According to the sheet they were produced for blog favourites MacNiven & Cameron, who cropped up in May with their outrageous stationery (When a Ballpoint just won't do). Just what MacNiven & Cameron planned to do with them is unclear but postcards are a distinct possibility.

The works of three photographers are represented. Arguably the most famous is George Washington Wilson renowned as a pioneer of photography in Scotland and famous for the poignant image of a grief stricken Queen Victoria upon her horse accompanied by John Brown. James Valentine also appears, with images taken from photographs of the Dundee area for which he was so famous. Again quite poignantly, Valentine is perhaps best remembered for the images taken of the Tay Bridge following its collapse in 1879. This was a monumental failure of engineering a result of which 75 people lost their lives, faith in progress was shaken, a landscape was dramatically altered and dubious poetry was inspired. These photographs would ghoulishly go on to be made into postcards but had been originally taken with the more honourable intention of being used as evidence in the official court inquiry. The third photographer is Peter MacFarlane who, as you can see if you've been following the links, has the distinction of being the only one without a Wikipedia page! His work appears to be less well known even though, in his own eyes, he was an official Royal photographer.

Neither Wilson nor Valentine suffered this fate with substantial archives in existence comprised of their phenomenal output. I cannot recommend highly enough a tour of Wilson's work via the pages of the University of Aberdeen Photographic Archive and of Valentine's via the University of St. Andrews Photographic Archive. In fact it was by doing just this that I came to be intrigued by the technique involved.

The above image captures the life of the people of Corpach, huddled under the looming protection of Ben Nevis. It was taken by Wilson, though the exact date is unknown, and is very practically called Ben Nevis from Corpach. A comparison with the original reveals one telling difference though, in the original the people aren't actually there. Exactly the same is true of a Valentine image called Inverlochy Castle and Ben Nevis. Whilst ostensibly the same photograph there are suddenly a couple of figures frolicking on the pebble beach in the foreground.

It is an interesting technique in that it produces an astonishingly beautiful effect. It is akin to a soft focus filtering already soft light. Yet how was it achieved and why the inclusion of the figures? Was it to add interest, did the lack thereof fail to satisfy MacNiven & Cameron's artistic sensibilities, was it to avoid copyright infringements by claiming them as something new? Whatever the reason though the images remain undoubtedly lovely.

Could that be one of the greatest titles for a book ever conceived of? In my opinion it certainly is, my only regret being that I didn't think of it first! Luckily this is somewhat sated by the fact that I am at least able to write about it as there is, as you might suspect, a strong link between this book and Bartholomew.

This is the frontispiece for "The Book of Adventure and Peril" first released by W. P. Nimmo, Hay & Mitchell in 1875, although this page was printed for an 1895 re-edition. As well as the enticing title the print is accompanied by a picture that equally caught my imagination.

Clearly this is a reflection of a time where a book, ostensibly aimed at an audience of young male children, deemed elephant hunting to be a perfectly acceptable pursuit. Nevertheless, the book transpires to be something of a revelation with the potential to encourage even the least sentimental of us to mourn the loss of the time when children were encouraged to read proper books, about world affairs, rather than the wizardy drivel that seems to abound today. Or not. As the preface acknowledges:

"Prefaces are not usually read, therefore we will make this as brief as possible"

Sage words and indeed so far so good.

"We have given the book no startling or sensational title..."

The mind can but wonder what they might have come up with if they had have gone for a sensational title!

"The volume opens with stories of poor prisoners, and their desperate and persevering attempts to escape from the cells and dungeons where a cruel and despotic power had immured them"

And on it goes. Some of the chapters designed to entertain the children readers include "A supercargo's narrative on the loss of a Russian ship on the north-west coast of America, and the subsequent adventures of the crew", "Between a tiger's jaws - Under-neath a tiger - A fine specimen of courage - Tiger-shooting at night", "How Sieur de Montauban's vessel blew up" and "God's power and providence shown in the miraculous preservation and deliverance of eight Englishmen, left by mischance in Greenland, anno 1630, nine months and twelve days; with a true relation of all their miseries, the shifts and hardships they were put to, their food, such as neither heathen nor Christian ever before endured. Faithfully reported by Edward Pelham, one of the eight men aforesaid...".

Yet this was but one of the books published by Nimmo and for which Bartholomew provided the illustrations.

"The treasury of British eloquence" being, as it seems to be, a compendium of political wit is undoubtedly one of Nimmo's briefer tomes; how well it sold I cannot tell. Their catalogue was nothing other than vast though. With a book to suit every pocket and every age group it was possible to buy from their fourpenny juvenile books, to their popular religious gift books to their all the year round gift books. Amongst their broader repertoire includes titles such as "Things a Lady would like to know concerning domestic management and expenditure" by someone no doubt best placed to understand the concerns of women at this time, male Henry Southgate and "The wealth of nature: Our food supplies from the vegetable kingdom".

Bartholomew seem to have supplied illustrations for only a very small number of Nimmo publications and most typically for the adult-orientated, heavy-weight books. The illustrations are characteristically beautiful, very finely engraved and exquisitely printed. It is perhaps testament to their reputation at this time that Nimmo turned to them to be relied upon to produce work of this quality. Portraits accompanied many of the frontispiece pages and for their comparatively small size they display a deftness of hand that attests to their skill.

The relationship between Nimmo and Bartholomew endured for some time and reveals the variety of the material produced, and the commissions undertaken by Bartholomew, at this point in their history.

On the 8th March 1889 Bartholomew printed 510 sheets of illustrations by George Tait. I'm none too familiar with the works of George Tait but, let me put it this way, he ain't no Quentin Blake! These illustrations were produced for an edition of the works of Scottish poet Thomas Kennedy. Now, I'm none too familiar with the works of Thomas Kennedy either but in truth, he's no Philip Larkin. Nevertheless, Kennedy turns out to have been quite an interesting character and for this reason is a worthy subject for today's entry.

Thomas Kennedy (1776-1832) was born in Paisley but at the age of nineteen he emigrated to the United States. As a result, whilst by birth and youth and indeed even by language he was Scottish through and through his star arguably burns brightest in his adopted home. He landed in Georgetown in 1796 before finally settling in Williamstown, Washington County. He was able to secure employment with the Potomac Navigation Company but swiftly began to pursue his ultimate goal of becoming a poet-politician.

His first major work was published in 1816, when Kennedy was ripely, forty years old. It was simply called Poems. The Bartholomew illustrations are for a much later reprint of the original. The illustrations include quotes from the text, arguably because of the potential for confusion amongst readers as to what they are actually trying to depict. But, what these quotes helpfully show is that, even after twenty years as a citizen of a foreign land Kennedy continued to utilise the Scots dialect.

If anyone is especially interested I am in the happy position to let you know that we here at the National Library of Scotland have a microform version of the original book which is freely available for consultation at our George IV Bridge building in Edinburgh. But, before you all rush out of the door a little word of caution....

Thomas Kennedy was not just a poet, as referred to earlier he also had political ambitions. Indeed, he was arguably fairly successful, entering the House of Delegates in 1817 and the Senate in 1826 before finally again entering the House of Delegates in a career that was only cessated due to his untimely death. Although a Republican he can perhaps be viewed as something of a liberal. One of his most resounding successes was fought over what was contemporarily called "the Jew versus the Christian Ticket". At the time it was constitutionally impossible for a person to take up office without first declaring their belief in Christianity. Clearly this excluded from office members of other faiths or indeed those with none. Kennedy brought about a Bill in 1822 and whilst initially defeated by 1825 it was approved by the people and passed by the Legislature. This success is still regarded as his foremost political achievement.

Yet this was not a "never the twain shall meet" state of affairs. In 1802 Kennedy was able to combine his twin loves of poetry and politics in what is probably one of the best stories that I have ever heard. This is the story of the Mammoth Cheese!

Baptist preacher John Leland (1754-1841) was the genius behind the cheese. As my Nan always says, behind every great cheese there's a great preacher! At any rate, it was conceived of as a gift to the newly elected Republican President, Thomas Jefferson. As preacher to a religious and political minority in Cheshire, Massachusetts, the separation of church and state as advocated by Jefferson and the coming of a more democratic Republicanism marked a welcome liberation for the community from the relative legal tyranny of the Congregationalist-Federalist majority that had preceded. Perhaps suitably poignant for a man that favoured yeoman farmers to city bankers, the community rallied and produced a gift best suited to their means and expertise. And what they produced was no ordinary cheese. It was reported to have been four feet in diameter, thirteen feet in circumference, seventeen inches tall and weighed 1,235 pounds. It became known as the Mammoth Cheese.

This cheese travelled to Washing D. C. by sea and land for a month before finally reaching the door of Pennsylvania Avenue. As Leland couldn't resist noting, "it was the greatest cheese in America, for the greatest man in America", indeed. Clearly, this cheese was of great poetic inspiration to Kennedy, who amongst us wouldn't be moved by so much cheese? He penned his, in my opinion legendary "Ode to the Mammoth Cheese presented to Thomas Jefferson, President of the United States, by the inhabitants of Cheshire, Massachusetts, January 1, 1802", catchy. Reproduced here is the first stanza:

Most excellent--far fam'd and far fetched cheese!
Superior far in smell, taste, weight and size,
To any ever form'd `neath foreign skies,
And highly honour'd--thou weft made to please,
The man belov'd by all--but stop a thrice,
Before he's praised-- I too must have a slice....

Just brilliant, but maybe not as good as the dizzying heights of the poem's climactic conclusion:

All that we want for or wish for in life's hour,
Heaven still will grant us - they are only these
Poetry - Health - Peace - Virtue - Bread and Cheese.

And who could argue with that?

The worth of the Bartholomew Archive as an aide to research, in a broad variety of fields, is without doubt. However, there are items in the Printing Record that catch my attention for no better reason than that they amuse me. And the ultimate, reliable, never failing source would have to be the adverts, printed by Bartholomew for the great and good of Scottish commerce. These little gems, bidden to convey all that was important in a necessarily condensed way, caused businesses to concentrate their minds and sometimes, with unexpected results!

Take, for example, the above advert for D. Wells, a company which supplied goods for anglers. It starts off quite conventionally but to my mind seems to lose it by dog collars and does nothing but go downhill from there. This descent into randomness is perhaps topped only by an advert for James M. Boyd. Again, it makes logical sense to begin with, indeed I'm suddenly tempted to head out on my bike, but I'm at a loss by the end.

Some adverts are intriguing as they open a window onto products no longer available today, usually for good reason.

Even if I didn't have a moral objection to the act of wearing fur, there's something about proudly walking around in a whole load of beavers or chinchillas that's surely too surreal to have ever even been contemplated. And what about this list of tempting treats advertised by a confectioner. Victoria, yes, Dundee, yes, but Tennis?

Some adverts just wouldn't be published today. How about the testimonial for an outfitters which describes their clothing as "fitting like a good discourse" or the eminently fun sounding Temperance Hotel, proudly suggesting itself as an ideal wedding or party venue.

Nevertheless, sometimes, some of the companies were intriguingly just a little bit ahead of the game. How about the Empire Restaurant with surely amongst the first telephones in Edinburgh.

Or this, I can but assume hugely unpopular at the time, niche restaurant....

All of these adverts were printed by Bartholomew in 1892 most likely for a publication but of which no other detail can be traced. Which is a shame as I would love to know where I could go about finding some of this!

Try as one might, it is impossible to escape the vast quantities of railway related material in the Bartholomew Archive Printing Record. With commissions from the North British, Caledonian and London and North Western Railways, to name but a few, Bartholomew were certainly kept busy by the needs of the railways. In fact, for those interested in Bartholomew statistics, in the twenty years between 1877 and 1897, Bartholomew printed no less than 711 individual railway related items. In real terms, if we assume each order was for a modest 1000 copies, it becomes clear that this really was an important part of Bartholomew's output at this time.

Be it brochures, maps, or eye-catching posters, the appetite of the railway companies was voracious. In a system which more closely resembles the railway we have today, private companies ran discrete services and as such competed ardently for supremacy. And not without good cause, from a business perspective at least, as there was an awful lot of money to be made. With motorways and inexpensive flights a generation or two away, rail travel dominated as the only way to move goods and people around the country at speed.

There is therefore little surprise that this sense of speed, progress and unassailable success spilled over into ambitious engineering projects. The Forth Bridge is of course a prime example. Yet even superficially mundane buildings were built in the spirit of these ambitious times.

Waverley Station sits at the heart of Edinburgh. It remains as important to the city as it probably ever did. From here it is possible to get to almost every nook and cranny of the British mainland with the major advantage of the sheer convenience of its location. And it is to the North British Railway (N.B.R.) that we can offer our thanks.

The above plan was printed on the 2 October 1890 and shows the N.B.R's proposed plans for what they called New Waverly Station. Although city centre stations were not new to Edinburgh, the wealthy N.B.R. were able to buy up the disparately scattered stations of their rivals and consolidate them into one central hub.

The plan almost casually refers to the gas works which are to be removed, the market to be demolished and the entirely new roads that are to be built. It was an ambitious plan perhaps but nevertheless was adopted and begun. Indeed, not only was the plan adopted but by the very next year, was being enlarged and improved upon.

More platforms, more demolition and more building led to a Waverley that would be entirely recognisable to the modern traveller. Albeit with one minor detail, the iconic hotel known today as the Balmoral was at this time, just a collection of random buildings.

In the interests of balance though, it is worth remembering that it hasn't transpired to be such as plain a sail for all railway companies. The equally wealthy Caledonian Railway had an idea for a grand station, a monument to rail, at the opposite end of Princes Street.

The submitted plan was printed by Bartholomew on 8 October 1890, more or less the same time as that for Waverley. The building work commenced and was crowned by a magnificent hotel sat atop the platforms below. But by 1960 the need for both stations was hard to justify and the ultimate looser was the Caledonian. Deemed as less convenient in numerous ways all that now remains is the hotel.

Princes Street is currently undergoing major changes and will emerge as something very different to what it recently was. But of course this has always been the case, change is ongoing. Through material in the Archive it is possible to piece together the story of some of these changes and to learn more about buildings which, because of their utilitarian nature, are all too easy to take for granted.

Many Printing Record items are interesting maps, many items are interesting because they aren't maps but very few are interesting because they are both. Happily though this apparent dichotomy is resolved in a very small handful of very rare examples.

Chas. Baker & Co. Ltd. may neither trip off the tongue nor stir many memories in the modern mind. However, from about 1864 until at least 1939, they were a large and forceful presence in the world of Gentleman's Clothing. With a head store spanning four buildings in High Holborn and with at least eight other London premises by 1913, they were a dominant feature on the vast London landscape. They were innovative, hugely successful and for the purposes of this blog, possessed of a very good eye for aesthetic and design.

This is The Pictorial Plan of London printed by Bartholomew on the 6 March 1897. Bartholomew first began printing these maps in 1892 and almost always in vast quantities, on occasion up to around 30,000. Chas. Baker ordered a new batch at least once a year and more typically twice. As far as useful maps go this probably isn't going to fit the bill but as a piece of design it is stunningly beautiful and exceedingly eye-catching. The colours remain startling and vibrant and I think it lives up to its subtitle by capturing the essence of "London towards the close of the 19th Century".

As with other companies at the time it seems as though Chas. Baker realised the power of maps. They sold copies of it in their stores for 1p but also incorporated it into the A.B.C. Guide to London, which it seems they also published. Copies of the guide could similarly be bought in their stores but for the appropriately inflated price of 3p. However, this was no simple act of beneficence, there was of course an ulterior motive and that was advertising.

Chas. Baker & Co. Ltd. was a hugely successful company and eager to remain so. Their entry in the 1913 "Whitaker's Red Book of Commerce or Who's Who in Business" describes them as specialists in men's tailoring and school outfits. What Whitaker's fails to mention though is that they were also genius advertisers. They not only approved for print a very striking map which bears their name and could be bought in their stores, they also tempted the unsuspecting with glimpses of the delights that they literally had in store, on the reverse of the map!

These extraordinary looking ensembles are surely just a small sample but nevertheless reveal that any occasion could be accommodated with just the right outfit. Whether you were a keen cyclist, hiker or lover of Royal Ascot and weddings, Chas. Baker had just the thing. And in truth, there's surely much more dignity in a nice tweed suit than ever could be had in Lycra.

Of course the sight of a well dressed man in a beautifully tailored suit, rare though it is, remains familiar to us today and so it is the images of the equally suited children which particularly jar. Of course, the modern concept of the ultra-long state of childhood, sometimes lasting a good twenty years, would have been equally odd to the family of 1897, a time when childhood was unsentimental and children nought but miniature adults. So, be it off to Eton or a meeting of the Young Conservatives, why shouldn't one's son look as dapper as his dad?

Yet as smart these people look, it is perhaps worth noting that in Whitaker, Chas. Baker describe their business as having been "established with the special purpose of producing cheap clothing of good quality for the people". In fact they also transpire to have been a pretty decent employer listing staff benefits and perks which included a cricket club, benefit society and even a library. Nevertheless, whatever the intention and ethos of the firm it is doubtful that the majority of the populace needed to worry about clothing their Eton or Rugby bound sons. There is therefore an air of exclusivity to this firm, or at least pretentions towards exclusivity.

Chas. Baker managed to persevere and achieved great success as a firm and whilst they may no longer exist, to me at least, they have also succeeded in leaving behind them one of the true gems in the Bartholomew Archive Printing Record. And the best of all? Well, to my mind it has to be "The Prince"!

To some, pens aren't just a slightly more indelible pencil, they are beauty personified. I might lust after an MGB GT, or a Bugatti Veyron, but to others Montblanc or Parker are what set the pulse racing. Perhaps it's time another name joins this illustrious company, that of MacNiven & Cameron.

MacNiven & Cameron were new to me when I stumbled upon a sheet of advertising produced for them by Bartholomew on 26 August 1879. I am told twelve reams were printed, and accepting that these were printers reams, that equates to 6192 copies. Their premises, at this time at least, was to be found at 23 to 33 Blair Street, Edinburgh.

One of the things which instantly struck me about the company was the sheer choice offered to the discerning pen lover. No mere ballpoint or fountain pen on offer here but how about a Rifle Pen or a Ladies' Pen? One which particularly troubled me was the oddly marketed Hand Pen, but all was revealed when later down the list you come across the Shoulder Pen, one can only imagine how that might have worked!

Various testimonials from highly regarded newspapers attest to the quality of the products on offer. A particularly glowing one makes the extraordinary claim that:

"There is magic about these pens"

That might explain the shoulder thing....

But, they didn't just stop at pens and pen nibs; they also produced stationery of repute and notably The Royal Exercise Book.

As can be seen, what better to sum up the claimed regality of this product than a semi-naked charioteer, slightly feminine looking horses and Pharonic masks! And that's what I like about MacNiven & Cameron. I don't know much about their pens and I don't know much about them but what they leave behind in this small collection of advertising is a glimpse into the insanity of their world. The names of the products, the ardent nature of the testimonials, surely not entirely honest. Maybe the newspaper review in its entirety read:

"It's certainly not true to say that there is magic about these pens"

Nevertheless, it was a formula which worked for them as MacNiven & Cameron were successful for almost 200 years and well into the 1960's. And although the firm may no longer exist even the quickest internet scan reveals something of the current cult nature of this firm and its advertising. One can even purchase an ironic t-shirt. With the odd imagery and the layer upon layer of hard sell it's hard to not be sucked in and maybe start coveting a MacNiven & Cameron above cars after all.

For the intrepid and probably wealthy Scot, H. Gaze & Son was a name to conjure with. Combining the convenience of experience with expertise, this company afforded travellers the feeling of adventure without the related inconvenience. As material from the Bartholomew Archive Printing Record shows, be it the Mediterranean or Scandinavia, H. Gaze & Son could put you on a boat and have you there in weeks. But, no other destination on their itinerary perhaps quite embodies the sense of genuine adventure more so than Egypt.

Clearly not altogether that worried about Egypt beyond the Nile, as this map shows, travellers with H. Gaze & Son were exclusively there for the obligatory river cruise. Accompanying this map, which was printed on the 17 January 1890, are a few glimpses into what the traveller to Egypt could hope to expect.

This is a dahabeah, an ancient vessel of a vintage sufficiently old to have been depicted in Pharonic tombs. Still to be found to this day, this type of boat no doubt fitted the bill for the image the Victorian lady and gent must have had in their minds of themselves, on the river, in the heat, drifiting lazily downstream. The boat was powered by wind alone and offered what was even by then the "traditional" way of touring the Nile. Because by this time a new breed of boat was chugging up and down the waterway, the steamer.

With the combined ability to travel faster and to carry more passengers in greater comfort, the coming of the steamer really open the way for the burgeoning industry. This steamer boasted two decks, had twenty-six cabins, a smoking room, an on-board kitchen and a dining saloon.

The vessels of course had appropriately exotic names, the steamers were christened El Khedevie and El Kahireh, and the dahabeahs were maybe less romantically named Sesostris, Cheops and Herodotus respectively. These, and vessels like them, could be seen continually ploughing up and down the Nile never quite satisfying the seemingly never ending fascination with the archaeological remains of ancient and Dynastic Egypt. Numerous travellers' handbooks from the day survive, all spookily familiar as they guide the tourist to the check-list of must-see attractions. Some notable exceptions for the modern tourist being sites such as Buhen, somewhat ironically flooded with the construction of the Aswan High Dam and now submerged under Lake Nasser, itself a newly created cruise opportunity.

It would be nice to think of the excitement felt by the intrepid adventures of 1890 as they set off into the relative unknown but the truth is, even at this time, Egypt was a well trodden, albeit somewhat exclusive, path. In the intervening hundred years much has changed but it does seem that some things at least, have remained rather much the same.

A small yet persistent element of early Printing Record material comes in the form of wordy advertisements for the latest health trend, Scottish hydropathic resorts. Boastful claims, eloquent language and the indication of opulence beyond compare all conspire to render these institutions all but irresistible.

Strathearn House, Crieff was undoubtedly Bartholomew's principal client but similar leaflets were also printed for the Waverley Hydropathic Establishment in Melrose amongst others.

The leaflets produced for these establishments are keen to stress the riches of their locales, the competitiveness of their terms and pictorially, the beauty of their surrounds but mysteriously they are vague indeed as regards the actual treatments. Maybe this is because, rather like the meaning of the canine inspired and probably literal term "WAG", it was taken for granted as common knowledge. However, it's possibly because the sort of treatment on offer sounds frankly horrendous and highly dubious.

Touted as resorts most suited to those with chronic ailments, patients were subjected to endless freezing cold baths, showers and coddling in wet blankets. And the water really was cold with the optimum temperature being a mere 8°C. Maybe I'm just too soft but imagining myself horrendously unwell and then transferring that image to a cold bath really doesn't sound like something I would choose to do, let alone pay for. Predictably, things didn't stop with the endless routine of treatments either. Every element of daily life was strictly regimented and profoundly restorative. As this extract from the leaflet demonstrates, no such decadent luxury as "breakfast will be served between the hours of 8.00am and 10.00am" for the residents of Strathearn House.

But then none of this seemed to deter the ill and the ailing. Long term residencies were common and clear proof of the efficacy of the treatment to boot! But of course, with tantalising descriptions such as these, who could blame them.

Somewhat modified but still recognisable, the hydropathic establishment at Strathearn House is still going strong. Offering a range of facilities more amenable to contemporary tastes it just goes to show, I may mock but that doesn't mean I'm right!