The bound volumes of rice-paper carbon copies.
An example of the handwriting on the rice-paper pages.
Many pages were typed – and I still can’t figure out how the carbon copies were subsequently bound.
Your’s truly working on this project – years ago.
I guess I was too busy doing the work, and ignored my intention to write about it as I went.
It has taken many many hours (years!), with white cotton archival gloves and a magnifying glass, to decipher the enormous volumes of writing and transcribe and translate them.
Now I’m excited to say, the end is in sight! I am now editing and doing some final translations.
Here is a very unflattering selfie of me triumphantly holding my manuscript!
The letters contain so many fascinating stories that no-one in our family knew about before.
The letters contain family history, the history of the textile industry in Peru and the businesses “El Progreso” and “La Union”, and an educated view of the social, political, and economic reality of life in Peru from the early 1900’s till the ’30’s.
But for me the most precious thing they contain is the feeling and essence of who my Grandfather George was.
The Bremners of Peru 