A Strange Recording from 1959
Rebecca and I visited Nottingham City Library yesterday to conduct more research into the Island wasteland site. We uncovered much of interest relating to the island's past (and numerous unrealised futures, including a plan for a 'World Trade Centre'), about which we'll say more soon- but one finding is worthy of immediate attention.
Our interest was piqued by a card in the index draw. These cards contain snippets of information on notable places and people in and around Nottinghamshire, or references for further investigation. Our site has a number of entries under 'Island Street', the name of a road which used to run onto the wasteland. Most of these are news snippets about goings on at the Boots Pure Drug Co. (now Boots PLC) factories and warehouses on the site.
One of these cards referred to 'Audio Recording Taken on Island Site, 21/3/1959: audio library'.
We asked to hear this recording (which is on an old reel-to-reel tape) and I managed to surreptitiously record it on my mobile phone (which I had to keep in my bag, hence the poor sound quality, though the recording itself is pretty low quality). It's really quite bizarre: there's a hum of industrial noise and some strange, ghostly humming (which sounds almost like throat singing). There was little to shed light on the recording other than the accompanying note, which read 'Boots Island Recording #12, 21/3/1959, R.E.G.'. We assume that R.E.G. are the recorder's initials but have no idea who it might refer to; nor what happened to the other eleven recordings (or if there are more recordings), but needless to say we will investigate further.
soundcloud.com/eastside-island-explorers/boots-island-recording-12-21-3
