Visit to the Tenement House and the Mitchell Library

 © National Trust for Scotland

The kitchen range

 

On 24^th October, Margaret Anderson led a group of Friends to the Tenement House, to lunch at Renfield St Stephens and then to the Mitchell library. Guided tours were provided at both places and greatly added to the enjoyment and understanding of members. At both, sufficient time was provided to allow for browsing and reflection.

There was a waiting list for this tour and it is hoped it will be repeated some time. 

“Beer, Wine and Spirits”

 On Thursday, 12 October, Friends gathered in Kelvingrove to hear the first in a series of free talks by Burrell Guides and were treated to an extremely amusing but very informative talk about alcohol by John Rattenbury.

We learned of the origins of beer making in Mesopotamia c 7000 BC and continued through the ages with the introduction of wine and finally spirits.

I learned a lot about items in the Burrell collection and facts like “tonnage” referring to a ship’s cargo comes from the word “tun”, meaning barrel, and the cargo was taxed according to how many “tuns” or barrels of wine it could hold.

The only thing which could have improved on the talk was if we had been able to sample some of the drinks being discussed!

The talks continue to be held on the second Thursday of the month at 2.00pm.

Liz Dent

Tea with John Byrne

Friends were invited by the staff at the Glasgow Museums shop to Afternoon Tea at the St Enoch Centre on the 11^th October. The room in which we met was comfortable and decorated with art work from schools. We had come for a conversation with John Byrne about his work as an artist and author and the questions covered a variety of topics and were answered with grace and humour.  Many of us left with signed postcards of his portrait of Billy Connolly and copies of his book. It was a pleasant afternoon and we thank Catherine McGurk for organising it and for chairing the meeting.

Courtesy of Frances Dryburgh

Launch of book “Deep in the Heart of Your Brain

On Monday 2 October, Friends, at the kind invitation Glasgow Life, attended the launch of the publication of the book “Deep in the Heart of Your Brain” in the splendid setting of the Gallery of Modern Art.

The book was the part of the recent exhibition of the same name by Jackie Donachie and recorded research and interviews with a group of women affected by myotonic dystrophy.

Both Duncan Dornan and Jackie Donachie expressed their thanks to FoGM for supporting the publication of this book and from what they said it was clear that artworks such as Jackie’s exhibition were a positive influence on research and care in the field of genetics.

We were able to view the video of “Hazel” a key work of the 2016 exhibition and, despite the sound quality in GOMA, we found it to be a moving and involving experience.

It was good to be able to hold the beautifully produced book ( available in the shop at GOMA) in our hands and feel that our grant had contributed something positive to both art and medical research.

Liz Dent